The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has won Outstanding Variety Series at the 78th Emmy Awards, four months after the CBS program aired its final episode. The Television Academy now lists the show as the 2026 winner, giving its 11-year run one more top-category Emmy after the broadcast itself had ended.
The result came in a newly merged category that included The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Saturday Night Live. The Late Show is the only winner currently listed by the Academy among the five nominees.
The win arrived after The Late Show’s series finale
Colbert signed off on May 21, 2026, closing his 11 years as host and the 33-year Late Show franchise. CBS reported that his version produced more than 1,800 episodes. The finale gathered former guests and fellow late-night hosts at the Ed Sullivan Theater, with Paul McCartney as the final guest.
CBS had announced the cancellation in July 2025 and said it would retire the entire franchise rather than replace Colbert. The network described the decision as purely financial and said it was unrelated to the program’s performance or content. The Emmy result does not change that ending, but it turns the completed run into the winner of television’s new combined variety race.
Why this Emmy was not a traditional head-to-head vote
For 2026, the Television Academy merged Outstanding Talk Series and Outstanding Scripted Variety Series into one Outstanding Variety Series category. It also reclassified the race as an area award, meaning voters evaluated each nominee independently instead of selecting a single favorite from the ballot.
Under that system, any nominee reaching a 90 percent yes threshold could receive an Emmy, so multiple winners were possible. If no nominee reached the threshold, the program with the highest yes percentage would win. Because the Academy currently lists only The Late Show as a winner, it is more accurate to call it the sole listed winner than to say it defeated four programs in a conventional vote.
The award raises The Late Show’s total to eight Emmys
The Academy’s updated show record lists 42 nominations and eight Emmys. Six of those wins came in 2026: variety series, writing, directing, technical direction and camerawork, lighting design and direction, and picture editing for a variety segment.
Several of those awards were tied directly to the farewell. The directing and technical-direction wins cite the series finale, while the editing award recognizes the segment that closed the program’s run at the Ed Sullivan Theater. The top-category win therefore caps a broader Emmy showing for the final season rather than standing alone.
The show also won the final Talk Series Emmy
The Late Show entered the merged format as the defending winner of Outstanding Talk Series. It won that category at the 2025 Emmys, the last year before the Academy combined talk and scripted variety programs. Winning again in 2026 links the former category to its replacement without treating them as identical awards.
The back-to-back top-category wins also give the program a rare closing sequence: its final complete season won under the old Talk Series label, and its farewell season won under the new Variety Series structure after the final episode had already aired.
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