Colbert's Late Show wins variety Emmy for final season
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has won the Emmy for outstanding variety series for its final season, which ended in May.
The CBS programme took the prize ahead of The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Saturday Night Live, according to Variety. The result was reported on 15 September 2026. It closes the book on the late-night show with a top-category win.
This year’s race looked different. The Television Academy had remerged two previously separate contests — outstanding talk series and outstanding scripted variety — into a single outstanding variety series category. That put talk shows and sketch-led shows back in the same field.
The voting rules are unusual. Outstanding variety series is decided as an “area” award, meaning any nominee with at least 90% “yes” votes can win. If no nominee reaches 90%, the nominee with the highest “yes” vote becomes the sole winner. The Late Show was the sole winner.
The series also won Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series and Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series. Head writers Ariel Dumas and Jay Katsir are credited on the writing win, with Stephen T. Colbert credited as executive producer and host. The show had nine nominations for its final season and collected five Creative Arts Emmy Awards, which honour craft and technical categories decided ahead of the main ceremony, according to TV Insider.
The win extends a late run of recognition. The Late Show picked up its first two Emmys in the prior year, for outstanding talk series and directing for a variety series. Its total now stands at nine Emmys across its run. All of those wins came after CBS announced it had cancelled the show, when the programme was the No. 1 talk show in late night.
For Colbert personally, the variety series prize was his 11th Emmy overall, according to The New York Times. That tally includes his earlier wins for best variety series for The Colbert Report, his Comedy Central satire programme.
What makes this stand out is the timing. A cancelled show rarely leaves with its biggest prizes still arriving. For viewers, this means the final season — the last episodes broadcast before the May finish — is now the awards record as well.
