A Standing Ovation for a Show Already Marked for Closure
In a twist both triumphant and bittersweet, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert won its first-ever Emmy for Best Talk Series at the 2025 Primetime Emmy Awards—just two months after CBS announced the show’s cancellation.
When presenter Bryan Cranston read the name, the audience at Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater rose for a rare standing ovation, applauding not only Colbert but also the roughly 200 staffers who have carried the show for a decade.
It was a moment of recognition packed with irony: a broadcast late-night show finally taking home top honors after years of dominating ratings, only to do so on the eve of its final season.
A Victory Decades in the Making
The Emmy history added another layer of poignancy. This was the first time in more than 20 years that a network series won in the category, a field long dominated by cable and streaming late-night shows. The last comparable win dates back to The Late Show With David Letterman in 2002, back when the award was defined under “Variety, Music or Comedy Series”.
CBS had announced in July that the franchise would permanently end in 2026, a decision executives framed as “purely financial” amid reports that the show was losing tens of millions annually. Industry insiders, however, speculated on whether the cancellation was more about Paramount’s corporate merger with Skydance than about Colbert’s performance. The move stunned many in late night, especially since Colbert has held the No. 1 slot among broadcast hosts for nine consecutive seasons.
Colbert’s Speech: Love, Loss, and Punching a Higher Floor
In his acceptance speech, Colbert revisited something he said when he launched The Late Show in 2015: he wanted to make “a late-night comedy show about love.” Over time, however, he said he realized the show was equally about loss—loss of normalcy, loss of political norms, and perhaps now, loss of one of television’s oldest cultural institutions.
“You only truly know how much you love something,” he told the audience, “when you get the sense you might be losing it.” Closing with an uncharacteristically raw line, Colbert declared: “In September 2025, 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”.
The Prince quote landed like a punctuation mark—half humor, half plea.
The Symbolism of an Emmy at the End
The Emmy does more than crown Colbert’s decade in late night. It underscores the growing paradox of television in 2025: shows canceled not for lack of audience or cultural relevance, but because of balance sheets. CBS executives asserted in July that profitability—not prestige—dictated the decision. Yet awards like this muddy the clean narrative of corporate logic.
For many in attendance, the moment felt like a cultural verdict: viewers and peers ratifying a host’s role in keeping political humor sharp and resilient during tumultuous years. Colbert, who once played a parody pundit on The Colbert Report, has now become something closer to the conscience of late night, sparring with presidents, skewering corporations, and turning network television into one of the last mass campfires in a fractured media landscape.
What Happens Now
Colbert insists he is focused on finishing strong rather than planning his next act. “I want to land this plane,” he said backstage, describing his remaining months with the show as a shared mission with his staff rather than a personal exit strategy.
Whatever comes next for Colbert—and for the late-night format itself—the 2025 Emmy win ensures that The Late Show exits on a note of vindication. It’s both an elegy and a standing ovation, a reminder that in television, legacy is sometimes measured not in longevity but in timing.