Meet Byron Allen: The new host jumping into Stephen Colbert’s time slot
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2026
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
And on Friday, he’s bringing his show Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen to the CBS time slot long held by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Host Ailsa Chang spoke with Byron Allen about his plans for Comics Unleashed and why he thinks there’s still more than enough political comedy after the cancellation of Colbert.
This conversation is part of NPR’s Newsmakers video podcast series. For more, follow or subscribe to Newsmakers on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you watch or listen. You can also find the show in the NPR app.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Consider This from NPR, where every day we go deep on one big news story. |
| 0:07.5 | Today, the successor to Stephen Colbert's late night slot on CBS. |
| 0:13.1 | All right, you guys are hot crowd. |
| 0:14.8 | We're going to have a lot of fun tonight. |
| 0:16.1 | Give ourselves a round of applause. |
| 0:17.9 | Byron Allen. |
| 0:19.8 | He's a media mogul who owns the Weather Channel, a bunch of local TV and cable channels, |
| 0:25.0 | and he's also just acquired a majority stake in BuzzFeed. |
| 0:29.3 | Byron Allen also has deep roots in stand-up comedy. |
| 0:33.4 | Thank you. |
| 0:34.0 | Thank you. |
| 0:34.5 | I guess I'd tell you about myself first. |
| 0:36.3 | When he was just 18 years old, still in high school, he appeared on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. |
| 0:42.9 | Favorite class is algebra. Oh, see, because I have a real hip teacher. |
| 0:48.7 | Gives us problems we can relate to. It's like, if Bob has a hundred hostess Twinkies, |
| 0:57.1 | eats 87 of them, |
| 0:58.8 | how many joints did he smoke? |
| 1:01.2 | And for the last 20 years, |
| 1:04.1 | Byron Allen has been the host of the Comedy Roundtable show, |
| 1:07.4 | Comics Unleashed. |
| 1:09.5 | All right. |
| 1:11.0 | We're going to have a great time tonight. |
... |
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