Byron Allen is taking over the late night slot at CBS, as Stephen Colbert’s show comes to an end. The company made the announcement on Monday that it was turning the 11:35pm ET post-local-news timeslot into a time buy.
Colbert’s show ends in May after which Allen will be in charge of the entire slot. Allen’s comedy talk show, Comics Unleashed, will be moved to said slot from May 22, and will air two back-to-back episodes nightly.
Colbert’s show is coming to an end after the host’s frequent satire of President Donald Trump drew backlash from his administration. It also comes after the Paramount Skydance deal which has brought CBS under the control of David Ellison, who’s widely seen as a Trump ally.
Allen, after taking over the slot, said “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.” The replacement has brought focus on Allen’s political views and who he supports.
Here is all you need to know about Byron Allen’s political views.
Byron Allen political views: All you need to know
Allen is not known to hold conservative views. In fact, he has been critical of Donald Trump in the past.
He is a media mogul and owns the Allen Media Group. In 2025, he hit back at Trump’s remarks on ‘fake news’. Allen was speaking at the Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit Extra: Road to Recovery when he called out the Republican.
“President Trump is completely wrong. What he’s not understanding is that he’s nothing more than temporary hired help. He works for the American people. He answers to us, we don’t answer to him,” Allen said.
He added, the media’s role was to keep ‘the bosses informed’. “The American people, we are the boss, we run it,” he said. “Thank God we have the media or else I think we might all be drinking Lysol right now, and we don’t need to be drinking Lysol,” Allen continued.
Colbert’s replacement appears to be a supporter of the Democrat Party. As per OpenSecrets, which calls itself a government transparency group tracking money in politics. Allen has donated heavily to Democratic causes.
In 2024, he $10,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In 2023, Allen gave a sizeable $47,100 in donation. Allen had himself been on The Tonight Show in his first appearance when he was 18, and then gained fame with the NBC hit Real People in the 1980s.
(With Reuters inputs)
