April 6 (Reuters) – CBS said on Monday it was turning its 11:35 p.m. ET post-local-news timeslot into a time buy, selling it to Byron Allen, after the end of Stephen Colbert’s late-night program in May.
Paramount Skydance-owned CBS will move Allen’s comedy talk show, “Comics Unleashed”, to the slot under a time buy agreement, with the series airing two back-to-back half-hour episodes nightly beginning May 22, the network said.
A time buy, a common practice in late night and early morning hours, is when a network sells a specific block of airtime to an outside producer or company, rather than filling that slot with its own programming.
The agreement is for the 2026-2027 TV season and will take CBS from financially challenged to profitable in late night.
Colbert’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” a frequent platform of satire aimed at President Donald Trump, will end its 10-year run on CBS on May 21.
As part of the deal, Allen will also continue to lease the 12:37 a.m. hour with another strip from his company, the comedy game show named “Funny You Should Ask.”
“I truly appreciate CBS’ confidence in me by picking up our two-hour comedy block of Comics Unleashed and Funny You Should Ask, because the world can never have enough laughter,” Allen said.
“The Late Show” debuted in 1993 with David Letterman as the host after he was passed over for NBC’s “The Tonight Show.”
Colbert was a regular on “The Daily Show” before he hosted “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central. He took over “The Late Show” in 2015.
(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Shreya Biswas)
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