“The Late Show” nabbed a 3.2 household rating/8 share on Wednesday, compared to a 3.1/8 for NBC’s “The Tonight Show” in Nielsen’s 56 overnight metered markets, which cover about 70% of U.S. TV households. Colbert then did a short monologue, which surprisingly included some jabs at CBS, his new home. 

“We will try to honor his achievement by doing the best show we can and occasionally making the network very mad at us”, Colbert said.

“And at 11:20…no one in the building could give me a guarantee for certain that the show was going to go on the air last night”.

He continued, “After all that, maybe we wouldn’t go on the air”. By his own admission, it was far from guaranteed that the show would make it to viewers’ television sets (or streaming devices) even 15-minutes before the scheduled 11:35 p.m. airtime.

 “Political observation is part of Colbert’s fabric, says Jeff McCall, journalism professor at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. ‘He is sure to keep political comedy as a main part of his new role, ‘ he says”.

The GOP frontrunner – and frequent late-night punchline – will be on Colbert’s “Late Show” on Tuesday, September 22, CBS announced on Thursday.

Colbert thanked his staff for their hard work to get the show up and running, and for all their struggles, at least they were able to mine a few good jokes out of it.