Emmys 2026 Outstanding Variety Series Winner: The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Beats Kimmel, The Daily Show, John Oliver and SNL

Bottom line: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert won Outstanding Variety Series on Monday night, Sept. 14, and it won alone. The Television Academy lists no second winner, so the new rule that allowed a tie never came into play.

Colbert took the stage at the Peacock Theater almost four months after CBS aired his last episode. The room stood for him, and he spent much of his time thanking a staff of more than 200 people and telling the industry to hire them.

Count the Sept. 5 Creative Arts haul and the final season leaves with at least six Emmys. It also breaks John Oliver's decade-long streak at the top of a variety program category.

What follows is our pre-show explainer, kept as written for the nominees, the merged category and how the yes-or-no ballot worked.

For ten years the Emmys gave late night two separate trophies, one for talk shows and one for sketch. This year there was only one category again, and for the first time it didn't have to end with a single winner.

Five shows were in it. One of them had been off the air since May 21, and it walked out of the Creative Arts ceremonies on Sept. 5 with more trophies than any other late-night hour.

Who is nominated for Outstanding Variety Series at the 2026 Emmys?

The Television Academy put five programs in the merged race when nominations came out on July 8. Two of the three network 11:35 shows made it; Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show and Late Night with Seth Meyers did not.

Three of the five have won the talk trophy since 2015, and one of those three, Oliver's, has also been winning the sketch-side prize. That overlap is why this year feels unsettled: these shows used to win in separate rooms.

Why did the Emmys merge the talk and sketch categories?

Fewer shows were entering. The Academy announced on Jan. 28 that Outstanding Talk Series and Outstanding Scripted Variety Series would fold back into a single Outstanding Variety Series award, citing a years-long drop in submissions to both.

The split had only existed since 2015. Late night has shrunk since then. CBS retired the Late Show name entirely, and NBC now makes new Tonight Show episodes four nights a week. Our 2026 host guide covers who is still behind which desk.

The rules include an automatic undo. If both formats ever draw 20 or more submissions in the same year, the categories separate again without a board vote.

Can more than one show win Outstanding Variety Series?

Yes, and that is the real story of Monday night. The Academy reclassified the category as an area award, which changes how voters mark their ballots.

Ninety percent is a steep number. In practice the fallback is the likeliest path, which makes it a conventional one-winner race unless voters are unusually generous.

That is how it played out. One show's name was read, and the Academy's winners page carries only the Late Show.

LateNighter ran the long-shot math on a five-way tie. It needs nearly every voter to say yes to all five shows, which is why the site calls it a long shot.

Which late-night shows already won at the Creative Arts Emmys?

Colbert's, mostly. The Creative Arts ceremonies ran Sept. 5 and 6, and the night-one results read like a send-off for a cancelled show.

The Late Show took five awards that night, adding lighting design and picture editing to writing and directing. Kimmel's trophy came for his prime-time game show, not for his talk hour.

The series award was not handed out at either Creative Arts night. That leaves it for the Monday telecast, where the whole field is still alive. Our sister site has the Creative Arts costume design winners if you're tracking the craft side.

Who has won the talk series Emmy before?

For most of its life the talk trophy belonged to one HBO show. Here is the full run of the category the Academy just retired.

Oliver didn't stop winning when he left that table. When Scripted Variety was introduced in 2023, Last Week Tonight competed there and won it three years running, which LateNighter counts as ten straight years atop its lane.

So the merged race puts the last three talk winners against the show that kept winning next door. SNL, which LateNighter notes is the winningest show in Emmy history, is the wild card.

Was Stephen Colbert favored to win?

The prognosticators leaned that way, and they were right. Variety's final predictions put The Late Show in front, reasoning that voters may want to salute a show CBS ended, with Jimmy Kimmel Live! named as the likeliest upset.

The Creative Arts sweep backs that read. So does timing: the Late Show won its first talk series Emmy only last year, so voters haven't had years to tire of it.

The case against is John Oliver's record. A decade of unbroken wins doesn't disappear because the category was renamed, and the yes-or-no ballot lets a voter back Colbert without voting against Oliver.

He doesn't get a quiet week out of it. On Tuesday, Sept. 15, he sat in Kimmel's guest chair at 11:35 p.m. ET, which our Stephen Colbert update tracks alongside what he has been writing since May.

When were the Emmys on, and what happened to late night that night?

The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards aired live Monday, Sept. 14, from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, with Mariska Hargitay hosting. It's the first time in 15 years a woman has hosted the show on her own.

The nominees' own shows mostly stood down. Kimmel ran an encore Monday and The Daily Show had no episode, while Andy Cohen's WWHL went up against the ceremony at 9 p.m. ET with Andrew Garfield and Jamie Bell.

New hours pick up Tuesday, and every booking for the week is on our talk show lineups for Sept. 14-18. Red-carpet coverage starts earlier; the Emmys red carpet start time is on our style site.

How can you watch the nominees without cable?

Each nominee lives on a different service. Hulu picks up Kimmel the next morning, Paramount+ has The Daily Show, HBO Max carries Oliver, and Peacock streams SNL along with the Emmys themselves.

The service-by-service breakdown is in our guide to watching late night without cable. For regular weeknight slots, the 2026 late-night schedule lists every show by time zone.

FAQ

Is there still an Outstanding Talk Series Emmy? Not in 2026. It merged with Scripted Variety into Outstanding Variety Series; the last talk series winner was The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2025.

Why aren't Fallon or Seth Meyers nominated? Neither show made the five-nominee field announced July 8. Meyers is also still in summer repeats until Sept. 21.

Can a cancelled show win an Emmy? Yes, and Monday proved it. Eligibility runs on episodes that aired in the eligibility window, and the Late Show already won five Creative Arts Emmys on Sept. 5.

Who won Outstanding Variety Series at the 2026 Emmys? The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, as the only winner. Kimmel, The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight and SNL were the other nominees.

Past nightly boards live under late night, including Thursday's lineup with Gal Gadot on Kimmel, and if you're wondering why Fridays go dark, see why late-night shows rerun on Fridays. Everything evergreen is filed in the guide section.

Sources · Listings data via TVmaze · Television Academy — 2026 Outstanding Variety Series winner · TVLine — Emmys 2026 winners list · TheWrap — Colbert's acceptance speech · Television Academy — variety categories rule change · ABC News — 2026 Primetime Emmy nominations · ABC News — Emmys 2026, what to know · Rotten Tomatoes — nominations list · LateNighter — the five-way tie case · TheWrap — Creative Arts winners · Yahoo Entertainment — Creative Arts winners · Variety — final Emmy predictions · Wikipedia — Outstanding Talk Series winners

By the Talk Show On Air desk · Updated Oct. 1, 10:02 a.m. ET