Byron Allen is officially getting the late-night opportunity he spent years chasing. Beginning May 22, one night after The Late Show with Stephen Colbert signs off, CBS will move Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen into the network’s 11:35 p.m. slot, followed by Allen’s game show Funny You Should Ask after midnight.
According to CNN, the move places Allen’s programming in both late-night hours following Colbert’s departure, further expanding the billionaire media mogul’s reach.
Less than a year before landing CBS’s marquee late-night window, Allen settled a $10 billion racial discrimination lawsuit against McDonald’s after accusing the company of excluding Black-owned media from its main advertising budget.
According to Reuters, Allen’s lawsuit argued that McDonald’s treated his company as if it only served Black audiences, despite Allen Media Group owning mainstream outlets such as The Weather Channel, TheGrio, Cars.TV, Comedy.TV, Recipe.TV, and dozens of local television stations.
The complaint stated that McDonald’s placed Allen’s businesses in what he described as a “de minimis” Black media advertising category rather than buying ads through its broader national budget.
The case ended in June 2025, just weeks before it was scheduled to go to trial in Los Angeles federal court. McDonald’s agreed to buy advertising from Allen’s companies “at market value” in a manner consistent with its overall strategy, while both sides agreed to keep the financial terms confidential.
McDonald’s denied wrongdoing, but Allen’s companies said in a statement that “we acknowledge McDonald’s commitment to investing in Black-owned media properties and increasing access to opportunity. Our differences are behind us.”
Allen has long made clear that he wanted Colbert’s old time slot. After CBS announced in 2025 that The Late Show would end, Allen publicly campaigned for the opening. “Let me be clear … if they are looking for a show, my hand is already up,” he said at the time, per Men’s Journal. “Fifty years I have been waiting for this moment, definitely I am going for it.”
That moment has now arrived. Allen, who began doing stand-up at 14 and became the youngest comedian ever to perform on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson at 18, has turned a once-struggling production company into a media business worth more than $4.5 billion.
