After the TV Academy merged the two major late-night Emmy categories earlier this year, it seems that things have shaken out just as expected with the number of nominations for the 2026 awards.

Deadline understands that the Outstanding Variety Series category, which merges the previous Outstanding Talk Series and Outstanding Scripted Variety Series categories, has 18 submissions, meaning that there will be five nominated shows across the two areas.

This is largely in line with last year when the two categories featured 19 submissions across the two sections.

It means that there will likely be three from late-night talk – last year, the three nominated shows were The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and winner The Late Show with Stephen Colbert – and two from variety – last year, Saturday Night Live faced off against winner Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

However, it might not shake out that way this year.

There are a handful of new titles from the world of YouTube including Ziwe: You’d Be an Iconic Guest and Brittany Broski’s burgeoning talker Royal Court, joining Sean Evans’ Hot Ones, as well as the tech business talk show TBPN, which was recently acquired by OpenAI. Byron Allen is also giving it a shot with Comics Unleashed.

Then there are the old reliables that haven’t necessarily been nominated in recent years but are always in the conversation such as Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Real Time with Bill Maher and Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. On the variety side, there’s also HBO’s It’s Florida, Man.

On the talk side, the favorites are clearly Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Kimmel has faced aggressive political pressure over the last twelve months, including being taken off the air by ABC after the rightwing slammed comments following the death of Charlie Kirk, and the President of the United States has made him a major target ever since. Colbert is coming off the cancelation of his show, which ended with a cavalcade of celebrities making a stop at the Ed Sullivan Theater.

Last year, Kimmel sided with Colbert in the Emmy battle with billboards across LA saying that he’d be voting for Stephen. Will Colbert, who won last year, return the favor this year?

Then, there’s The Daily Show, SNL and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, who won his category,

Deadline understands that at least one of SNL and Last Week Tonight (or in a very outside chance HBO’s It’s Florida, Man) will make the cut out of the five nominations as a result of the way the Academy is keeping an eye on the two tracks, but essentially it will be a popular vote across all talk and variety shows for the other four spots.

Once the nominations are announced, there’s a whole different story about how many of these shows will actually win an Emmy after the 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() );