After eight seasons on the air, “Late Night with Seth Meyers” has finally earned an Emmy nomination for Best Variety Talk Series. Seth Meyers‘ NBC chat show joins reigning winner “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” and former nominees “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on the 2022 Emmys line-up — see the complete list of nominations.
It’s possible “Late Night” has benefited from a last-minute rule change, in which variety show producers appealed to the Television Academy to bring back the fifth nomination slot. To recap, since 19 shows submitted in the category this year, that would have yielded just four nominations, per Emmy rules. Because the appeal was successfully granted, the fifth slot was reinstated on June 29.
Gold Derby predicted that the top four contenders in this category would be “Last Week Tonight,” “The Daily Show,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “The Late Show.” The chat shows fighting for that coveted fifth position, according to our racetrack odds, were “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” “Conan,” “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” and “Desus and Mero.” Of course, it’s entirely possible that Meyers’s program ended up being ranked #1 through #4 on voters’ ballots, and that slot #5 went to one of the aforementioned favorites.
“This is an honor made all the sweeter by happening the same day @rheaseehorn got hers!” Meyers tweeted on Emmy noms morning. He was referring to Rhea Seehorn, long-snubbed by the TV academy, who found herself double-nominated this year for drama series “Better Call Saul” and short form series “Cooper’s Bar.” Watch our exclusive video interview with Seth Meyers.
Even though “Late Night” is now officially a nominee in Best Variety Talk Show, history is on the side of “Last Week Tonight” to win … for the seventh year in a row. John Oliver‘s HBO program has yet to lose this category ever since “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” went off the airwaves. If it prevails again, that would put “Last Week Tonight” in second place on the all-time list of Best Variety Talk Series winners, ahead of six-time champ “Late Show with David Letterman” and behind only 11-time leader “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
“Late Show with Stephen Colbert” has now been nominated six years in a row. Stephen Colbert‘s previous chat show “The Colbert Report” won twice as Best Variety Talk Series, but he hasn’t prevailed since joining the CBS late night program. The funnyman’s most recent Emmy victory came for producing the live variety special “Stephen Colbert’s Election Night 2020.”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live” has now been nominated 11 times in this race without a win, which is just one bid behind the category’s all-time loser “Real Time with Bill Maher” at 12 noms. Jimmy Kimmel himself is a two-time Emmy winner for producing “Live in Front of a Studio Audience” in 2019 and 2020.
Trevor Noah‘s version of “The Daily Show” has been up the last five years in a row. The comedian won his only Emmy for “The Daily Show: Between the Scenes” in the Short Form Variety Series category in 2017, and he was also nominated last year for hosting the 63rd Grammy Awards.
Besides series, “Late Night with Seth Meyers” is also nominated this year in the Best Variety Directing category. Meyers himself has one Emmy Award on his mantel for co-writing Justin Timberlake‘s “SNL” monologue song in 2011.
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