The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

May 24, 2017

Background

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is an American late-night talk show hosted by Stephen Colbert, which premiered on September 8, 2015. Produced by Spartina Productions and CBS Television Studios, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is the second iteration of CBS’s Late Show franchise. Stay Human, led by bandleader Jon Batiste, serves as the program’s house band, and the announcer is program writer Jen Spyra.

The program is taped at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City and airs live to tape in most U.S. markets at 11:35 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, and 10:35 in the Central and is repeated several times a day.

On May 1, 2017, Colbert made lewd jokes against President Donald Trump — creating quite a public backlash. These comments included:

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“Sir, you attract more skinheads than free Rogaine.”

“You have more people marching against you than cancer.”

“You talk like a sign language gorilla that got hit in the head.”

“In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c–k holster.”

I filed a FOIA request to the FCC for all complaints sent in from the public. Although I expected quite a few, I had no idea that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert would have generated well more than 5,700 of them! Most of which, I would assume, came after the May 1st show.

Due to the volume of them, the FCC sent the first 100 in the initial response, seeking confirmation if I would like the rest.

On May 25, 2017, I confirmed via email with the FCC that the majority of the complaints on this show, were due to the May 1st rant by Colbert. The email stated:

John, we received less than 10 complaints about Stephen Colbert / Late Show from January 2017 to the end of April 2017. As previously noted, we received slightly less than 5900 complaints since his May 1^stshow.