‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ Wins Emmy for 2026 Outstanding Variety Series

The Variety Series in 2026 was an "area award" able to recognize multiple nominees that received at least 90 percent of the vote.

“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” won the 2026 Emmy for Outstanding Variety Series, upsetting the long-time winner of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” It’s the first year in which multiple nominees could take home the prize under new rules classifying the Variety Series category as an “area award.” But ultimately, Colbert’s show was the sole winner for its final season on the air.

Instead of vote for a single show, voters answered a Yes/No question as to whether this nominee merited an Emmy, and any nominee that received 90 percent of the vote would be able to win. Additionally, the Television Academy combined the Scripted Variety Series category with the Outstanding Talk Series category this year due to a lack of submissions and eligible nominees the last few years.

The other nominees were “Last Week Tonight,” “The Daily Show,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” and “Saturday Night Live.”

Colbert’s “Late Show” ended this year amid the leadership change at Paramount and what many felt was pressure from the Trump administration to remove Colbert. “The Late Show” ended in May after 11 years of Colbert behind the desk, having taken over for David Letterman. Paramount in cancelling the show — and giving it a 10 month runway to his final episode on air — said it was purely a financial decision and had nothing to do with its performance (it was No. 1 in ratings for some time) or its content. But to many that claim fell on deaf ears, including to Colbert himself, who was a frequent critic of President Trump and often earned the President’s ire on his Truth Social.

Colbert won last year for Outstanding Talk Series, but his final episode of “The Late Show” was a particularly strong send off that vaulted it to Emmy glory, including him bringing out his old boss Jon Stewart from “The Daily Show” to guide him into a worm hole, hosting a conversation with his fellow late night hosts as part of the podcast “Strike Force Five,” and bantering with musical guest Paul McCartney in a nod to his iconic Beatles debut on the Ed Sullivan Theater stage.

Colbert in accepting the Emmy said that part of the beauty of a late night show is that it’s a wonderful incubator for young people to work professionally on a deadline with a group of other talented people.

“That is the future of our business we have to look after,” Colbert said, adding with a laugh that they are all “tech avail,” a nod that they’re all out of a job after his show was cancelled. Hire them.

“I’ve interviewed at least a thousand of you,” he said thanking the collective Emmys crowd. “Thank you for coming to talk to this idiot. The segment went great, and I’m sorry I forgot to play your clip.”

There was a chance that this year could produce multiple winners, in part because Colbert wasn’t the only one who had heat around him politically. Kimmel was temporarily taken off the air by Disney after uproar from the right wing over a joke he made regarding the death of Charlie Kirk. And Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” has been a perennial winner, winning 32 Emmys in its run, including sweeping the Outstanding Variety Series or Outstanding Variety Talk Series every year since 2016. His show, of course, is also poised to have a new “Business Daddy” in Paramount, which just cancelled Colbert.