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Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Where did all of David Letterman’s YouTube clips go?

It's not Stephen Colbert's fault.

 

Michelle Jaworski

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Posted on Jun 12, 2015   Updated on May 28, 2021, 2:40 pm CDT

Feeling the urge to get nostalgic with some old David Letterman clips? You won’t be able to do it anymore.

All of the clips and full episodes from The Late Show’s run have been taken off of CBS.com and The Late Show’s YouTube channel, leaving empty pages in their wakes; as with CBS getting rid of the Late Show set, that didn’t take long. Anything and everything you loved (or hated!) about the show is no longer online.

If you want to watch something from an older episode, you’ll have to hope that someone uploaded a mirror copy of the clip somewhere. Otherwise, for now, you’re out of luck.

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Initially, some thought it had something to do with the emergence of Stephen Colbert’s new Late Show site and YouTube channel and not letting the older era get in the way of the new regime. But like many things, it just turned out to be something less personal: It’s just business.

Now that Letterman is no longer on The Late Show, the digital rights to all of his clips and episodes go from CBS to Worldwide Pants, Letterman’s production company, which likely took them down. But it’s possible the clips might see the light of day again.

“As you might imagine, there is significant interest in the Worldwide Pants-owned content,” the agency that represents Letterman and Worldwide Pants told BuzzFeed. “We are currently considering a range of options.”

H/T Vulture | Photo via Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

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*First Published: Jun 12, 2015, 12:57 pm CDT