For seven years, if you weren’t named John Oliver, you were just happy to be nominated in the talk series category at the Emmys . Between 2016 and 2022, HBO’s “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” dominated the category, a streak beaten only by Oliver’s former employer, “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” which won variety talk series the entire decade between 2003 and 2012. That remains the longest winning streak for any primetime series in Emmy history.
But the category has been no stranger to change in recent years. Up until 2015, late-night talk shows competed against the likes of “Saturday Night Live” in the variety series category. Then, the Television Academy split that category into variety talk series and variety sketch series.
It was overhauled again for the 2023 Emmys when “Last Week Tonight” was moved to the new scripted variety series category, where it now faces off against “Saturday Night Live.” (If you’re lost, you’re not alone.) With talk series now in its own category, the door is open for traditional late-night talk shows to once again vie for a prize that hasn’t been won by a broadcast series since the “Late Show With David Letterman” in 2002.
At the belated 75th Emmys in January, Trevor Noah’s final season at the helm of “The Daily Show” won the first talk series Emmy. This September, it will have to fend off the same contenders again — “The Daily Show,” “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” “The Late Show With.