NBC won’t air new ‘Tonight Show’ to compete with Stephen Colbert’s CBS finale

NBC will join ABC in airing a rerun opposite Stephen Colbert’s final night of hosting CBS’s “The Late Show.”

“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” will not broadcast a live program to compete with Colbert’s 11:35 p.m. swan song, when the CBS host ends his 11-year run on May 21.

Entertainment site Late Nighter reported that Fallon and ABC host Jimmy Kimmel are both stepping aside so Colbert can enjoy the limelight on that upcoming Thursday evening.

Both men appeared as Monday night guests on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” to wish their counterpart well. HBO host John Oliver and NBC’s Seth Meyers were also on the program.

Colbert announced on July 17 that his show was coming to an end as Skydance Media moved forward to acquire his network’s parent company from Paramount Global.

TV executives said eliminating Colbert’s show was a financial decision despite President Trump’s efforts to pressure networks that are critical of him and his administration.

The President posted on his social media site in July that “The word is, and it’s a strong word at that, Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go in the untalented Late Night Sweepstakes and, shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone.”

Anna M. Gomez, the sole Democratic commissioner on the FCC, warned ABC’s parent company on Monday that it’s being targeted by the Trump-friendly commission.

“What Disney is facing is not a series of coincidental regulatory actions but a sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control,” she wrote in an open letter posted to social media.

Gomez said the entertainment giant is in for a tough fight, despite being on the right side of the law and the facts.

Trump appeared on Fallon’s show in 2016 during his first run for the presidency. Fallon was widely criticized for goofing around with the a candidate many saw as divisive.

“I didn’t do it to humanize him,” he later told The New York Times. “I almost did it to minimize him.”

Fallon, a Brooklyn native like Kimmel, became a household name by appearing on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” from 1998 to 2004. NBC didn’t return a Daily News request for comment about next week’s rerun.