The Interview CBS Didn't Want on TV — And Why 85 Million People Watched It Anyway

The Interview CBS Didn't Want on TV — And Why 85 Million People Watched It Anyway

What was supposed to be a routine late-night interview turned into one of the biggest media controversies of 2026.

In February, Stephen Colbert taped a 15-minute interview with James Talarico, a Texas state representative running for the U.S. Senate, for The Late Show. It never made it to air. That same night, Colbert told his live audience that CBS lawyers called the show and said the interview could not be broadcast. He was also reportedly told not to mention that it had been pulled — which he immediately did anyway.

CBS pushed back, saying the show was only given "legal guidance" tied to FCC equal-time rules — not an outright ban. Under those rules, once a candidate appears on a broadcast station, competing candidates must be offered comparable airtime. Rather than fulfill those obligations, the show posted the interview on YouTube instead. Colbert publicly called the network's explanation "crap," accusing Paramount of backing down under pressure.

The controversy didn't stop there. The FCC, under Chair Brendan Carr, has been pushing to apply equal-time rules more aggressively to broadcast talk shows — something rarely done in decades. An active enforcement probe was also opened against The View over a prior Talarico appearance. Carr denied any censorship took place. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat on the commission, publicly disagreed, calling it a troubling example of corporate self-censorship in the face of government pressure.

The timing raised serious questions. CBS's parent company, Paramount Global, has a multibillion-dollar merger currently awaiting FCC approval — giving the administration significant leverage over the network's decisions.

Whatever happened behind closed doors, the outcome was the opposite of what anyone hoping to suppress the interview might have wanted. Within 72 hours, the interview generated 85 million views across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. The full 15-minute interview alone pulled over 7.5 million views — more than twice the daily average for Colbert's YouTube channel. Talarico's campaign raised $2.5 million in the 24 hours following the incident.

Colbert summed it up best himself: if the interview had aired quietly on broadcast television, a few million people might have seen it and moved on. Instead, the attempt to keep it off TV made it the most-watched political interview of the year.

Colbert's Late Show is scheduled to end in May 2026. CBS calls it a financial decision. The timing, like everything else in this story, is hard to ignore.