The show will return with new episodes in 2026.

Why The Late Show With Stephen Colbert isn’t new this week

The show will return with new episodes in 2026.

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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December 22, 2025 8:00 p.m. ET

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Stephen Colbert on 'The Late Show'. Credit:

Scott Kowalchyk/CBS/Getty

Stephen Colbert and company are taking some time off for the holidays.

*The Late Show With Stephen Colbert* will air reruns for the next two weeks before returning with new episodes in 2026. This isn't an unusual break, as the show usually goes dark for two weeks at the end of each year, including last year.

The episode airing Monday, Dec. 22, will be the ep that first premiered Dec. 2, featuring Rachel Maddow and a performance by Drive-By Truckers with Jason Isbell. The following ep, on Tuesday, Dec. 23, will be a rerun of the episode from Dec. 8, with Sigourney Weaver, Mandy Patinkin, and a performance from George Balanchine's *The Nutcracker* featuring Tiler Peck.

The episode on Wednesday, Dec. 24, will be a re-airing of the Dec. 18 episode, with Hugh Jackman and a performance by Louis Cato and the Late Show Band. The *Late Show*'s Christmas rerun will be an episode from Dec. 3, featuring Jessie Buckley, Michael Shannon, and a special appearance by Prince Harry. The broadcast on Friday, Dec. 26, will re-air the episode from Dec. 9, with Laura Dern, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and Evie McGee Colbert.

The following week will also exclusively feature reruns. The ep airing Monday, Dec. 29, will be a repeat of the Nov. 18 episode, with Ted Danson and Alison Roman, while the Tuesday, Dec. 30, broadcast will show the ep from Dec. 16, with Anderson Cooper, Andy Cohen, the Mountain Goats featuring Tommy Stinson, and Laura Benanti.

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*The Late Show* will be completely off the air Dec. 31 to make way for CBS' *New Year's Eve Live: Nashville's Big Bash* broadcast. On New Year's Day, the show will air a rerun from Dec. 1, featuring Lady Gaga, New Jersey Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill, Kristin Chenoweth, Stephen Schwartz, and Daniel Craig. The rerun on Friday, Jan. 2, will be the Dec. 10 episode, with Benedict Cumberbatch, Patton Oswalt, and Jesse Welles.

This holiday hiatus will be the show's last-ever December break, as CBS announced that *The Late Show* will permanently end at the conclusion of its current season in May 2026. The network said the decision was "purely financial" because of "a challenging backdrop in late night, and that the cancellation was "not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at [CBS parent company] Paramount."

Stephen Colbert on 'The Late Show'.

Scott Kowalchyk/CBS

However, critics questioned the intentions behind the network's move to end the show, noting that Paramount had recently agreed to pay a settlement to President Donald Trump over a *60 Minutes* segment, which Colbert previously criticized as a "big fat bribe."

In a *GQ* interview in November, Colbert said he didn't know why CBS canceled *The Late Show*, but explained that he understood why some believe the move was an attempt to appease the Trump administration.

"I can understand why people would have that reaction because CBS or the parent corporation decided to cut a check for $16 million to the president of the United States over a lawsuit that their own lawyers, Paramount's own lawyers, said is completely without merit," he said. "And it is self-evident that that is damaging to the reputation of the network, the corporation, and the news division. So it is unclear to me why anyone would do that other than to curry favor with a single individual."

Colbert also recently questioned why Paramount opted to end his show after the company made a $108 billion bid to buy Warner Bros. "If my company’s got that kind of green, I'm sure they can afford to uncancel one of their best shows," he quipped.

*The Late Show With Stephen Colbert* airs at 11:35 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Late”