Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Bows Out With 9 Emmy Nominations, Its Biggest Haul Ever

The party is over at the Ed Sullivan Theater, but not before one last embrace from the Television Academy.

In its final season, “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” drew nine Emmy nominations on Wednesday, the biggest awards showing of Colbert’s 11-year tenure behind the desk. Before this year, the largest haul was three consecutive years of five nominations, which occurred from 2020 to 2022.

“The Late Show” is up for variety series, writing for a variety series, directing for a variety series, production design for a variety/reality series, technical direction and camerawork, lighting design, sound mixing for a variety series/special, picture editing for variety programming and music direction.

CBS aired the series finale on May 21, retiring the “Late Show” franchise after 33 years — 22 under David Letterman and 11 under Colbert — in what the network called “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.” The move drew scrutiny, given the show’s ratings strength and the timing of Paramount’s merger with Skydance.

Among Colbert’s nominations was outstanding variety series, which this year was a merger of the former outstanding talk series and scripted variety series categories. It competes against “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” “The Daily Show” and “Saturday Night Live.”

As part of the same overhaul, the outstanding variety series is now classified as an “area” award. That means nominees aren’t competing against one another. Instead, each is independently trying to get at least 90% of Emmy voters to answer “yes” to a single question: “Does this nominee merit an Emmy?”

If a show clears the bar, it wins, regardless of whether another one does.

So in theory, an overwhelmingly embraced field could produce Emmys for multiple programs in the same race in the same year. Of course, 90% is a steep threshold even for the most beloved shows. And if no nominee clears it, the show with the highest percentage of yes votes takes the trophy. There will always be at least one winner.

The final season closed an era of pointed political comedy that made Colbert a nightly fixture, and a frequent target of the current Trump administration.

Final-round voting takes place Aug. 17-26 ahead of the Creative Arts Emmy Awards and Governors Gala on Sept. 5-6. The Primetime Emmy Awards will air Sept. 14 on NBC.