‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’ Finale Attracts 6.74 Million Viewers, Its Most-Watched Weeknight Episode Of All Time

The series finale of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” pulled off the series’ most-watched weeknight episode of all time, according to early data from CBS. The Eye network reports that the finale of “The Late Show” posted 6.74 million viewers on Thursday night.

That’s up from the show’s 2026 Q1 average of 2.69 million viewers, per live+7 big data info. And it’s above “The Late Show” series premiere on Sept. 8, 2015, with averaged 6.55 million viewers.

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The most-watched episode of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” of all time was its post-Super Bowl episode on February 7, 2016, with a 10:54pm start time; that episode garnered 20.55 million viewers.

For comparison, but during a very different time in linear TV viewing, the final broadcast of “Late Show With David Letterman” in May 2015 drew 13.76 million viewers (which made it that show’s largest audience since February 1994).

“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” was canceled by CBS under questionable circumstances; the network said it was a fully financial decision, but the timing (right when the network’s owners had a need to curry favor with the Trump administration) and the way “The Late Show” was ended left plenty of fans and observers scratching their heads at the decision to kill the franchise after 33 years.

In the final episode, surprise guest Paul McCartney was seeing turning out the lights in the Ed Sullivan Theater, the historic location where the Beatles performed on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964, and the home to “The Late Show” since 1993.

“The Late Show” ended with McCartney and Colbert singing the Beatles‘ “Hello Goodbye,” along by Elvis Costello, former band leader Jon Batiste and current band leader Louis Cato, as well as staffers singing and dancing through and around the stage.

Besides McCartney, celebrity guests who dropped by included Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Tim Meadows, Tig Notaro, Ryan Reynolds, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, Jon Stewart and Andy Cohen.

Among other highlights, an interdimensional wormhole opened up at the Ed Sullivan Theater. And before their “Hello Goodbye” finale, Colbert, Cato, Batiste and Costello performed Costello’s 1977 tune, “Jump Up.”