A host of previous Emmy winners will duke it out for a supersized late-night Emmy (or Emmys).

The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Saturday Night Live will compete in the Outstanding Variety Series category after the Outstanding Talk Series and Outstanding Scripted Variety Series categories were merged.

A curious new wrinkle also emerged after the categories were merged, meaning that it is possible that more than one of these shows win.

Oliver, a former Daily Show correspondent, has won ten Emmys on the trot including three in the Outstanding Scripted Variety Series category, which was introduced in 2023, and seven in the Outstanding Variety Talk Series category. After HBO’s Last Week Tonight was moved to the new category, The Daily Show won two Emmys in the Outstanding Talk Series category on the bounce, while The Late Show with Stephen Colbert won last year, helped by being canceled by CBS ahead of its takeover by Paramount.

Meanwhile, SNL won six consecutive Emmys between 2017 and 2022 in the Outstanding Variety Sketch Series and Outstanding Variety Sketch Series categories and its 50th anniversary special won the award for Outstanding Variety Special last year.

This group of shows were widely expected to be nominated even as a host of new digital shows vied for attention including YouTube shows Hot Ones, Ziwe: You’d Be an Iconic Guest and Brittany Broski’s Royal Court alongside the likes of Late Night with Seth Meyers, which was in the Emmy conversation until last year when the category only landed three nominations.

Oliver will be tough to beat given his near-constant Emmy presence, but there’s a chance for two of the classic talkers to upstage the British comedian. Jimmy Kimmel has been praised for how he has handled troubling political pressure, particularly when he was taken off the air by ABC after conservatives slammed his comments following the death of Charlie Kirk.

Similarly, Colbert won last year after his show was axed by CBS, coming days after the former Daily Show correspondent called his parent company’s lawsuit settlement with President Trump’s administration a “bigfatbribe.”

Last year, Kimmel put his support behind Colbert, installing billboards across LA saying that he would vote for Stephen. It will be interesting to see whether Colbert does the same this year for Kimmel.

The category has faced many changes over recent years and after the two categories were merged, there were rules put in place to ensure that at least one of the SNL and Last Week Tonight would make the cut out of the five nominations.

However, now that the nominations are out, there’s a real chance that more than one of them wins. The TV Academy reclassified the category as an area award, which could result in multiple winners. Nominees that receive a threshold of 90% will “merit” an Emmy, and that could well mean that more than one show picks up a statue.

Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.

Comments On Deadline Hollywood are monitored. So don't go off topic, don't impersonate anyone, and don't get your facts wrong.

Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );