David Letterman Late Show on CBS Announces Official End Date for 2015, Stephen Colbert To Replace Long-Time Late Night Host
CBS has announced that the "Late Show with David Letterman' will officially air its final episode on May 20, 2015. The 67-year-old host has been hosting the show on CBS for 22 years, winning nine Emmy awards. Before that he hosted "Late Night with David Letterman" on NBC for 11 years.
"David Letterman has given to all of us a remarkable legacy of achievement and creative brilliance that will never be forgotten," CBS Corp President and CEO Leslie Moonves said in today's announcement. "It's going to be tough to say goodbye, but I know we will all cherish the shows leading up to Dave's final broadcast in May."
Stephen Colbert has been revealed to be the successor for Letterman and has officially announced that his final "The Colbert Report" show will air on Thursday, December 18th on Comedy Central. Now, we know that he will take over on CBS in May 2015.
Letterman broke the news to his "Late Show" audience at earlier this year sharing, "The man who owns this network, Leslie Moonves, he and I have had a relationship for years and years and years, and we have had this conversation in the past, and we agreed that we would work together on this circumstance and the timing of this circumstance. And I phoned him just before the program, and I said 'Leslie, it's been great, you've been great, and the network has been great, but I'm retiring."
Letterman continued, "I just want to reiterate my thanks for the support from the network, all of the people who have worked here, all of the people in the theater, all the people on the staff, everybody at home, thank you very much. What this means now is that Paul and I can be married. We don't have the timetable for this precisely down - I think it will be at least a year or so, but sometime in the not-too-distant future, 2015 for the love of God, in fact, Paul and I will be wrapping things up and taking a hike." When his remarks were over, he received a standing ovation from the Ed Sullivan Theater audience.
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