Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report” ended its run on Comedy Central on a high note, pulling in the largest audience in the show’s history for Thursday’s final episode, Deadline.com reports.

About 2.5 million viewers tuned in to watch Colbert air his last episode of the show. By comparison, when the show recently hosted President Obama, the program drew what was considered a big audience, with 1.732 million viewers.

Colbert will return to television next year, when he takes over CBS’s “Late Show” from David Letterman. The time slot for “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central will be filled by “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” starting Jan. 19.