Ever since 2005, Stephen Colbert has been ruling late night television on Comedy Central. Next year he will be leaving his post after ten years to take over for David Letterman on Late Show. This is a drastic change for Colbert, whose current show is a satirical version of The O’Reilly Factor. Will his current rapport with his audience get in the way of his success as himself on CBS?

Letterman announced his departure not even two months after Jimmy had taken over for Leno. I cannot say that I was surprised that by Letterman’s retirement. Everyone knew Fallon was going to be some serious competition. Fallon is more relevant and appealing to the precious 18-49 audience. He has a social media savviness that Letterman doesn’t have. So when Letterman “unexpectedly” announced his retirement, CBS needed a host that would supersede Jimmy’s popularity. Colbert already has a large and loyal audience from his show on Comedy Central, which make him a very good choice for Late Show.

I just want to start off by saying that I believe that Colbert will do an amazing job. I was just a little disappointed. CBS had the opportunity to break the monotony of white men ruling late night television. While Chelsea Handler’s name was being thrown around, I knew she wasn’t going to get the job because people aren’t quite comfortable with a woman making vagina jokes just yet. I was hoping that they would pick either a woman or a non-white person just to break the norm. CBS is pretty much a white washed station. It’s time to change it up.

I also have some reservations about Colbert taking over. My biggest one being that his comedy style might not be for network TV.  The Colbert Report has an advantage in that he can say almost anything that he wants about various hypocrisies in politics. I feel like he can do this because he has more freedom on cable. With network television, his show reaches a larger audience, which allows more people to scrutinize him for things he might say.

That being said, the majority of the 18-49 age group favors Colbert, those who are older than 49 don’t like him as much. Fallon is very “family friendly” in that he can amuse teenagers and the elderly. He’s even appeared on iCarly. Colbert is missing a huge portion of the 50+ because he is perceived as a strict liberal. He will have to be slightly less biased when it comes to reporting about politics on CBS. If anyone argues that Colbert isn’t “family friendly” just kindly mention the unlikelihood of a future infidelity scandal.

Stephen Colbert is a genuinely funny guy. He doesn’t need to talk about politics in order to be funny. When he does have to bring it up, he’ll have clever jabs instead of an endless barrage of fat jokes. He also knows when news is old news and won’t bring up Rob Ford’s crack scandal almost a year after it was reported. I Ameri-can believe he’ll be great and so can you. If anyone has reservations about Colbert’s ability to host Letterman’s show, just watch this clip.