As it embarks on its final season, CBS’ Late Show With Stephen Colbert took home its first Emmy for best talk series.
The show won the award Sunday at the 2025 Emmys, beating out Jimmy Kimmel Live! and last year’s winner, The Daily Show. It’s the first win ever for a broadcast late-night show for best talk series — a category that’s existed since 2015. Prior to that, the last network show to win the Emmy for best variety, music or comedy series was The Late Show With David Letterman in 2002.
Even before presenter Bryan Cranston announced The Late Show’s win, the audience at the Peacock Theater gave the show a standing ovation, which continued as Colbert and members of the show’s team took the stage.
“I want to thank CBS for giving us the privilege to be part of the late-night tradition, which I hope continues long after we’re no longer doing this show,” Colbert said in his acceptance speech. He also thanked the 200 people who work on The Late Show, saying “I’m so proud to be one of you.”
CBS announced in July that the 2025-26 season would be the last one for The Late Show — not just with Colbert as host but for the franchise altogether, which began with Letterman in 1993. CBS made the announcement a few weeks before parent company Paramount’s acquisition by Skydance closed. The network called it a “purely financial decision,” with reports — disputed by some in the business — that The Late Show was losing as much as $40 million annually.
The series win for The Late Show follows a win for best directing for a variety series at last week’s Creative Arts Emmys.
The talk series field shrank by one entry this year with just three nominees, due to a smaller number of submissions in the category. Thirteen shows submitted for consideration, one short of the number needed for four nominees. Five shows were nominated in 2023.
Concluding his speech, Colbert said 10 years ago, he said he set out to make a late-night show about love, but he later realized “we were doing a late-night comedy show about loss. That’s related to love, because sometimes you only truly know how much you love something when you get a sense you might be losing it. Ten years later, in September 2025, my friends, I have never loved my country more desperately. God bless America. Stay strong, be brave, and if the elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy and punch a higher floor.”
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