James Corden is preparing to say his goodbyes to The Late Late Show.
The Brit has extended his contract for the CBS late-night series for one year and will depart ahead of summer 2023.
Corden will have hosted The Late Late Show for eight and a half years by the time he departs – a major achievement.
“It’s been it’s a really hard decision to leave because I’m so immensely proud of the show. I’m thrilled to be extending [for a year],” Corden told Deadline. “I always thought I’d do it for five years and then leave and then I stayed on. I’ve really been thinking about it for a long time, thinking whether there might be one more adventure.”
Corden signed a contract to host The Late Late Show, which had been previously hosted by Ferguson, in 2014 and premiered on March 23 2015.
The Gavin & Stacey co-creator was somewhat of a surprise choice but he reinvigorated the 12:30pm timeslot on CBS and breathed new life into late-night with viral segments such as Carpool Karaoke, Drop The Mic, Spill Your Guts and Crosswalk Musical.
In fact, Corden’s Carpool Karaoke with Adele has been watched more than 250M times on YouTube, while his journey with One Direction has racked up 189M views. The Late Late Show YouTube page itself has had nearly 10B views and has over 27M subscribers, the second highest in late-night.
Corden’s move marks the second high-profile change in late-night over the last 12 months after a relatively stable few years. Conan O’Brien recently left the space after a long career behind the desk and Jimmy Kimmel’s future is also uncertain with the comedian publicly discussing whether or not he will continue to host his ABC show.
CBS will also have to work out what they do after Corden and how they will replace him.
There’s been much speculation over the last few years whether Corden would exit The Late Late Show and return to the UK. But Corden told Deadline that he and his family “genuinely don’t know the answer to that”.
(Excerpt) Read more in: Deadline