CBS Hires New Showrunner Chris Licht for 'Late Show', Is Stephen Colbert Raings Struggling?

Less than 6 months after Stephen Colbert took David Letterman's seat in CBS' long-running Late Show, it seems the Comedy Central alum is struggling to find his spot in the very crowded and competitive current world of late-night television -- and the network's taking note. In a recent move, CBS moved an executive producer/showrunner Chris Licht from This Morning to help Colbert's ratings.

According to The New York Daily News, CBS announced the move to bring in Chris Licht to The Late Show last Wednesday, after the producer "reinvented the network's morning news show" to give it a place in the busy morning schedule across competing networks.

While CBS hasn't outright said they don't like the current way in which Colbert is handling his job hosting the famed talk show, the move to hire someone else to run says a lot. Particularly considering since Colbert began his role in Letterman's chair, he has been the one doing all the work in front and behind the camera.

Yahoo! News reports that Jimmy Fallon is usually the top man in the late-night business these days, averaging 3.82 viewers as host of The Tonight Show. He's followed by Colbert with 2.94 million and Jimmy Kimmel with 2.43, though the ABC host is occasionally ahead.

Ahead of the launch of his Late Show last September, Colbert released a series of clips on the show's YouTube channel that were fairly successful, including an interview with superstar astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson when New Horizons reached Pluto. However, in the months since, Colbert has failed to create as much "bite-sized" content as rivals Kimmel and Fallon, both of whom have a knack for creating videos that go viral on YouTube.

Unlike previous times when only the major networks had prominence in the late-night arena, these days there are plenty of shows in the format in network and on cable as well, from Trevor Noah's Daily Show (where Colbert came from when it was hosted by Jon Stewart) to Seth Meyers' Late Night on NBC.