The Late Show with Stephen Colbert may be over, but the Television Critics Association just gave it—and its host—a pretty nice sendoff.
Stephen Colbert’s CBS late-night show won Outstanding Achievement in Variety, Talk or Sketch at this year’s TCA Awards, beating a field that included The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Muppet Show revival, and Saturday Night Live.
The win marks The Late Show’s first victory in the category after years of close calls. Colbert’s show had racked up six nominations over the past eight years without taking home the prize.
Colbert himself also received the TCA Career Achievement Award, putting him in especially rare late-night company. Among late-night hosts, only Johnny Carson and David Letterman had previously received the honor.
Other past recipients of the award include Walter Cronkite, Lucille Ball, Jim Henson, Fred Rogers, Norman Lear, and Lorne Michaels.
The Career Achievement honor annually recognizes an individual whose work has helped define television. For Colbert, it arrives at the end of an 11-season run on The Late Show, and after more than two decades as one of TV’s signature late-night voices, from The Daily Show to The Colbert Report to CBS.
Between The Late Show’s variety win and Colbert’s own Career Achievement Award, the TCAs gave him and his team a fitting capstone: one award for the show’s final season, and another for the career that got him there.
The timing doesn’t hurt, either: Colbert’s dual TCA honors arrive the same week final-round voting opened for the 78th Emmy Awards, where The Late Show is already enjoying a series-best haul of ten nominations—including Outstanding Variety Series.
The TCA Awards have been handed out annually since 1985, with members of the Television Critics Association honoring the year’s best work across broadcast, cable, and streaming.
