CBS is going back to a familiar play—and a familiar face—to fill its 12:30 a.m. ET late-night slot.
< i>Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen will step in for the recently canceled After Midnight starting Tuesday, September 23, 2025. The show, produced by Allen Media Group and already in syndication and airing on 14 CBS-owned local stations, will run back-to-back episodes for a full hour as the network reassesses its late-night strategy.
It’s not the first time CBS has leaned on Comics Unleashed to plug a late-night gap. The network temporarily slotted it in after The Late Late Show with James Corden wrapped in 2023, before launching the short-lived After Midnight reboot. Now, with that experiment cut short, CBS is again turning to a known quantity that comes with minimal production cost and built-in inventory.
The move reflects ongoing recalibrations in the late-night landscape, where viewership continues to decline on linear and legacy nets are increasingly reluctant to invest in new format launches. Allen, whose long-running show mixes stand-up and loose panel-style interviews, has branded the series a passion project—and it’s one he’s kept humming for years with a rotating cast of comics, including Kevin Hart, Whitney Cummings, and Chelsea Handler.
CBS hasn’t indicated whether Comics Unleashed is a long-term fix or a short-term patch, but for now, it gives the Eye Network a low-risk placeholder as it decides what, if anything, to build next in the post-Colbert hour.
