The liberal crew on CBS Mornings faced the awkward task Wednesday of promoting billionaire media mogul and comedian Byron Allen paying CBS to air archival and supposedly new material from his show Comics Unleashed — which marks 20 years in 2026 — starting Friday in place of the cancelled Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Notably, Allen emphasized the show will not feature politics but instead “appeal to all” and “bring people together using comedy.”
“[T]he show is comedians discussing funny things that happen. And are you going to talk politics, or is it all about comedy,” wondered Saturday co-host Adriana Diaz.
Allen had an emphatic reply: “No, no, no, no politics. That’s it. You come, you laugh. You know...we’re about to have our 20th anniversary this fall...of Comics Unleashed, 20 years of laughter. We’ve had on a thousand comedians, every — every state, shape, size, you name it.”
When Diaz said that means “you want to bring people together,” Allen added: “And I want to bring people together using comedy. I’m going to appeal to all.”
Moments earlier, Diaz brought up Allen’s position of taking Colbert’s slot and wondered “how” it “sit[s] with you” after CBS suits pulled the plug: “[Y]ou just mentioned that you’ve written jokes for David Letterman and you know the public criticism from Letterman, from Kimmel, from others about CBS canceling Colbert. How does that sit with you as the person who’s taking on this time slot?”
Byron Allen on his deal to air ‘Comics Unleashed’ episodes on CBS after Colbert’s cancellation...
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 20, 2026
“I think it was a very unfortunate event. I love Stephen Colbert. I’m a big fan. Once they made the decision, I said, okay, this isn’t show business. This is business show. You… pic.twitter.com/8QWqi4ukQX
Allen insisted he thought “it was a very unfortunate event” because “I love Stephen Colbert” and “I’m a big fan,” but also knew “this isn’t show business,” but “business show” given CBS has been “losing lots of money.”
“I said, here’s a solution not to lose lots of money. And I think we can hold on to his audience and hopefully build on it because it is business show not show business. I absolutely love Colbert, and I would do anything — he doesn’t need me. I would do anything to support him,” he added.
Diaz also delivered the two teases to this sit-down, describing Comics Unleashed as “taking over The Late Show slot.”
The interview began with a clip of Allen from a 1979 appearance on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson as proof of his comedy chops being in addition to his ownership of a media conglomerate.
“He made history as the youngest stand-up comedian to appear on the show, and now the media mogul and powerhouse producer is making late-night history again. This Friday, he takes over The Late Show time slot with his comedy talk show, Comics Unleashed. Byron Allen is the show’s host and executive producer,” Diaz began.
After Diaz and co-host Nate Burleson joked about how he looked as a teen 47 years ago, Diaz remarked Allen has “said that you have wanted to have a late-night show since that performance that you had on Johnny Carson’s show.”
Allen said that he had long watched Carson’s show as a boy in Los Angeles while waiting for his young mother (who had Allen when she was 17) to come home from giving tours at NBC, and in doing so, “I’ve said to myself, what a wonderful way to go through life, making people laugh.”
Cued up by fill-in co-host Major Garrett, Allen explained that his official launch date in the Colbert slot is Friday, which will be 34 years to the day Carson left The Tonight Show.
Before asking him to denounce the Colbert cancellation, Burleson had him explain how this deal with CBS had come about.
Allen stated plainly to the former NFL player that broadcast networks are facing “some financial pressure” because “sports rights are very expensive” and “ad dollars are shifting from linear to digital,” which he’s come to learn as he “invested about a billion dollars buying ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox affiliates and other assets like The Weather Channel.”
He then relayed his negotiations to pay CBS to let him air his two-decade-old show to save $150 million by cancelling both The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Taylor Tomlinson’s After Midnight (click “expand”):
And what I said to the networks, I said, look, you’re spending about $150 million on Colbert and the show after Colbert. So, you’ve decided to cancel both of them. My recommendation is that you don’t spend money on that time period now that you have decided to cancel them because at the end of the day, you’re throwing me an audience at 1:30 in the morning to my CBS affiliates that I own around the country.
And I’m running half-hour infomercial spray on hair. You know, abs in 24 hours. I said, save your money, I will put my show Comics Unleashed on. Now, I started Comics Unleashed — well, first of all, they said, this is great...[T]hey said, this is a great idea. You’re going to save us $150 to $170 million.
To see the relevant CBS transcript from May 20, click here.
