Late-night television and the Emmys have had a symbiotic, yet complicated, relationship over the years.
Yes, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Michael Che, Colin Jost and Kenan Thompson have hosted the awards show over the last ten years, but no, the TV Academy doesn’t really know what to do with their shows, according to many people behind-the-scenes in late-night.
Over the last three years, there have been rule changes, category swaps and nomination reductions impacting shows such as The Daily Show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Saturday Night Live.
Back in 2022, a group of showrunners, led by Ben Winston, then showrunner of The Late Late Show with James Corden, successfully campaigned the TV Academy to cement a fifth nomination. A year later, Last Week Tonight was moved into a new category – Outstanding Scripted Variety Series – to compete against SNL and last year, the talk category was reduced to only four nominations.
Now, it appears that there could be only three nominations when the ballots are issued on June 12, which was admittedly a worry last year but didn’t happen. It’s all about the math, apparently.
The TV Academy’s rules mean that if a category scores between 8 and 19 submissions, the number of submissions will be divided by four and rounded to the nearest whole number.
It’s not entirely clear how many shows have been submitted in the Outstanding Talk Series category. ABC has submitted Jimmy Kimmel Live!, CBS has submitted The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, NBC has submitted The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers and Comedy Central has submitted The Daily Show. Then there are shows such as HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen and Peacock’s Hart to Hart as well as buzzy newcomers such as Sean Evans-fronted Hot Ones and Netflix’s Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney and a few unexpected ones such as CNN’s Have I Got News For You and Very Important People, which airs on Dropout, the service formerly known as CollegeHumor.
Other trades have reported that BBC America’s The Graham Norton Show was submitted, but Deadline understands that this is not true. There were also rumors that TelevisaUnivision-owned network UniMas has submitted Spanish-language panel show ¡Siéntese Quien Pueda!, but it has, in fact, been submitted for the Daytime Emmys.
That makes it 12 shows that we know about. There’s obviously a chance that there are other submissions that we aren’t aware of but if there’s not two hiding in plain sight, that will equate to three nominations.
Meanwhile, a strange new system for Outstanding Scripted Variety Series means that Last Week Tonight with John Oliver will only compete against SNL, despite submissions from HBO’s Fantomas and CBS’ After Midnight, and will be judged by a separate jury.
This is not a new problem but the TV Academy has not made any changes to the talk or variety categories to address the situation, which comes as late-night is facing its own existential issues.
Ultimately, in talk, it means that one of The Daily Show, which has won for the last two years, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Late Night with Seth Meyers will miss out on a nomination. Hot Ones and Everybody’s Live have been getting FYC buzz but they did last year as well, and weren’t able to convice the somewhat conservative Academy voters.
“I say that awards are bullshit, fully, at the same time asking for your consideration, we’d love that Emmy,” John Mulaney joked on the season finale of Everybody’s Live.
But what’s the solution?
One suggestion is the TV Academy could determine there should be four nominations every year, regardless of how many submissions there are. This happens in the main comedy and drama categories with eight nominations (albeit with far more submissions).
“I wish I knew how to fix it for them,” one late-night source told Deadline. “I think the easiest thing for them to do is do away with this insane equation.”
Then, there’s the scripted variety category.
In December 2022, the TV Academy made some other rule changes that impacted these types of shows; it moved The Problem with Jon Stewart out of the Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special category and into talk. It didn’t however, move My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, which won the Emmy in this category last year.
Couldn’t Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, with its deeply researched explorations into American politics and global relations, admittedly with a bit of pop culture pizzazz, fit into this category to compete with the likes of Conan O’Brien Must Go, Eva Longoria: Searching For Spain and Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr?
SNL Cast Photo: Season 50 (NBC)
What would you then do with SNL? The Emmys did once have a Best Live Show category, admittedly in 1950 when The Ed Wynn Show won. But such a category could also capture the drive for live as streamers such as Netflix ramp up the amount of live programming they make, such as viral dating series Pop The Balloon. It could also include Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney, giving the Baby J winner another chance for an Emmy.
One of the other challenges is that late-night insiders say that the TV Academy is unwilling to engage on the topic. “They don’t seem receptive to having a conversation,” added the source.
If they are unwilling to engage, the late-night hosts could theoretically sit out a year, which would lose the Academy submission fees and a healthy number of ticket buys, seeing as the broadcast shows at least send hundreds of people a year to the awards.
One late-night insider said that they’d love nothing more than to sit out a year to prove a point. The only argument against such a move would be ego, it seems.
Seeing as Stewart and Colbert are close and others including Kimmel and Meyers became close during the writers strike by hosting the Strike Force 5 podcast together, one could see this suggestion on a group text.
“We’re all friendly now, it’s really nice. You realize that not a lot of people do shows like these and it’s really silly not to take advantage of being able to talk to them and share your insights on what works and what doesn’t,” said Seth Meyers at his own FYC event at Herb Albert’s Vibrato Grill Jazz in LA.
Meyers was also on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night and the pair joked about the awards competition between their two shows.
“Wouldn’t you say it’s a little odd seeing as we are in the same category that you would be here on my show to promote your Emmy nomination?,” said Kimmel. “Are you saying it’s weird because you’re the competition, I’m using your show to get a nomination?,” replied Meyers.
“Yeah, which could potentially bump me out. It’s kind of like when you’re watching CNN and you see a commercial for Fox News,” hit back Kimmel. “Am I Fox News in this analogy?,” asked Meyers, to which Kimmel replied, “You’re Newsmax.”
Meyers’ show is also exec produced by Lorne Michaels, the man who has the most to gain from Emmy changes. SNL has been beaten twice in a row by Last Week Tonight, having previously won the award six times in a row before Oliver moved into its category. Michaels also exec produces The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
But Michaels seems loathe to get involved or say anything publicly. Admittedly, other than an annual interview with The New York Times, Michaels rarely says anything publicly.
However, could a new wrinkle in a separate, but related Emmy race force his hand?
Beyoncé Bowl (Netflix)
Beyoncé is hunting for her first Emmy and is hoping that Beyoncé Bowl, her hometown, Christmas Day NFL halftime show on Netflix, will change that. In 2016, her Lemonade special lost out to The Late Late Show Carpool Karaoke Prime Time Special and Homecoming, her 2019 documentary that followed her headlining Coachella, was only nominated, and lost, in the craft categories.
But this year, Netflix is going big to support Beyoncé Bowl. The streamer invited TV Academy members to screen the 13-minute special last month in L.A.. The twist? It was in a suite at SoFi Stadium before one of her Cowboy Carter dates with voters able to stay and watch the show.
Why would Michaels, who has 106 nominations and 21 Emmys, care? Well, Beyoncé Bowl is entered in the Outstanding Variety Special (Live) category, which is the same category that NBC has submitted SNL50: The Anniversary Special, the live, three-hour celebration that took place on February 13.
As Beyoncé sang in her last appearance on SNL in 2008 ‘If I Were A Boy’… well, she’d probably have her own late-night show, further complicating matters.
