- The final episode of "The Late Late Show With James Corden" aired Saturday.
- Corden, the show's fourth host, announced his exit last year.
CBS aired its final episode of "The Late Late Show" Saturday after a 28-year run, and its termination may have had to do with the show's declining profitability.
Sources told Brian Stelter for Los Angeles Magazine that the late-night show, hosted by James Corden since 2015, cost $60 million to $65 million a year to produce but made less than $45 million.
"It was simply not sustainable," an anonymous executive told Stelter. "CBS could not afford him anymore."
Corden announced his exit as a host in April 2022, but it was unclear at the time whether the "Late Late Show" franchise would continue.
With Corden at the helm, the show received 12 Emmy nominations and won the award for outstanding interactive program in 2019. Some of the show's most popular segments were "Carpool Karaoke" and "Spill Your Guts," in which celebrities had to answer a question truthfully or eat unfamiliar foods.
Deadline reported the show averaged 971,000 viewers in the 2020-21 season. Seth Meyers' "Late Night," which shared the 12:30 a.m. ET time slot, averaged 1.01 million viewers, the report said.
But keeping Corden on board was costly. Variety reported Corden's salary was about $4 million to $5 million when he first signed onto the show in 2015. His pay increased to an undisclosed amount with the show's success, the report added.
A CBS spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.