Stephen Colbert is back on television - just not the kind you'd expect. The former Late Show host has teamed up with rocker Jack White to launch a weekly community access show in Michigan, and it's exactly as weird as it sounds.
The show, tentatively titled Access Detroit, airs Wednesday nights at 11 PM on public access channels throughout southeastern Michigan. It's shot on handheld cameras in White's recording studio in Detroit and features a rotating cast of local musicians, artists, and whoever happens to be around.
This isn't some vanity project or celebrity stunt - well, it sort of is, but it's also genuinely interesting. Colbert and White are using the most democratic medium available to create something that couldn't exist on commercial television. No sponsors, no network notes, no demographic targeting. Just two famous people with cameras and time.
Colbert left The Late Show last year after contract negotiations broke down, and he's been notably absent from the entertainment conversation since. Meanwhile, White has spent years championing analog media and DIY culture through his Third Man Records label. The pairing makes more sense than you'd think.
Early episodes - available on YouTube after they air on public access - feel like a cross between early Letterman and local cable programming from the 1980s. Colbert interviews local artists with genuine curiosity, White occasionally performs songs or demonstrates recording techniques, and there's a pleasantly shambolic energy to the whole enterprise.
It's also, weirdly, a political statement. In an era when media is increasingly centralized and algorithm-driven, two major entertainment figures are deliberately choosing the most marginal platform possible. They're not building an audience - they're finding one that already exists.
Will it last? Probably not. These things rarely do. But for now, it's a fascinating experiment in what television can be when nobody's trying to monetize it. And if you're in with access to channel 902, you can watch it unfold in real-time.
