... Colbert ends TV season with bang

Stephen Colbert did it. The President Trump-bashing host of the CBS “Late Show” won the weekly late-night ratings battle over his NBC rival for the 16th straight time last week — powering the show to a first-place finish for the September-May TV season.

It was the first season ratings win for CBS in 22 years — not including the 2009-10 season that featured NBC’s Conan O’Brien-to-Jay Leno fisaco.

While three nights remain in the season, Nielsen claimed Colbert’s 22,000-viewer lead over “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” is insurmountable.

Colbert’s political-focused monologues helped him draw more viewers than Fallon in each week since Trump was inaugurated — giving CBS a come-from-behind 3.195 million-to-3.173 million average viewer lead.

With his anti-Trump blasts, Colbert was the only late-night host to draw a larger audience this TV season — posting an 11 percent gain over 2015-16.

Fallon was down 15 percent for the season.

Going back to Week 1 of the TV season reveals just how far Colbert has come.

That’s when Fallon’s 3.779 million viewers trounced Colbert’s 3.041 million for the week ended Sept. 23, 2016.

Year-to-date averages include live viewing plus seven days of delayed playback. The weekly ratings include live plus same-day playback.

For the week ended May 19, Colbert drew an average of 3.02 million viewers, compared with Fallon’s average of 2.67 million.

Colbert has chosen to pursue a more political bent on his show while Fallon has chosen to focus on more general humor.

Also, Fallon is believed to have stumbled badly when he was seen as fawning over Trump and tussling his hair during a September show.

Fallon, however, continues to dominate the 18-34 age group favored by advertisers.

For the week, Fallon’s show averaged a 0.68 rating with the coveted demo, widening its lead over Colbert’s “Late Show” rating of 0.52 by 31 percent.