Stephen Colbert is playing politics, and the winner is CBS.
While “The Late Show” isn’t top dog in its highly competitive time slot, Colbert’s strategy of differentiating himself by tackling serious topics is paying off. The new-look “Late Show” has averaged 2.872 million total viewers in all episodes that have not featured a politician as guest, but 3.674 million in each of the 10 that had one — a rise of 27.9 percent.
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush was on Colbert’s very first show, setting the tone for the revamped talk show, but also skewing the average up. That Sept.