‘SNL’s 50th Anniversary Beats Out Beyoncé’s Bowl, 50 Years After Lorne Michaels Won His First Emmy

One of the more intriguing Emmy battles this year was Beyoncé going head-to-head with Saturday Night Live’s celeb-filled 50th anniversary special. It turns out that the TV Academy voters enjoyed the latter.

SNL 50: The Anniversary won the award for Outstanding Variety Special (Live).

It beat Netflix’s Beyoncé Bowl, the Apple Music Super Bowl Lix Halftime Show Starring Kendrick Lamar, The Oscars and its own SNL50: The Homecoming Concert.

Presented the award from his former SNL star Tina Fey, Lorne Michaels was nostalgic, having first won the Outstanding Variety Series award in 1976.

“I won this award for the first time 50 years in 1976. I was younger and had a lot of dreams about what would happen in my life. Not one of those dreams was me doing the same show for the next 50 years,” he said.

Michaels thanked NBC and Comcast. “The [anniversary] show was two years in the planning…