Kimmel, Colbert, and Last Week Tonight Nab Variety Writing Emmy Noms

Kimmel, Colbert, John Oliver — Photos: ABC, CBS, HBO

The Emmy race for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series is officially a three-show late-night showdown.

Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver were nominated Wednesday for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series, beating out a crowded field that included Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Real Time with Bill Maher, and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

For The Late Show, the nomination carries extra weight. The show’s now-former writers room released a homemade FYC video late in nominations-round voting, framing it as something they made themselves because CBS was not doing an Emmy campaign “for us.”

CBS has said it campaigned for The Late Show more broadly, with a source familiar with the network’s Emmy campaign telling LateNighter that CBS had run an FYC campaign for the show asking voters to consider it “in all categories.”

Either way, the writers made the cut.

That was no small thing. Just 11 programs submitted for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series this year, which under Emmy rules meant only three nomination slots. The final three left out several perennial or high-profile contenders.

For The Late Show, the nomination marks a return to a category where it had once been a fixture. The show was nominated seven straight times from 2017 through 2023, but missed the cut in 2024 when the category contracted from five nomination slots to three. Last Week Tonight, Saturday Night Live, and The Daily Show advanced that year, with Oliver’s show going on to win again.

This year’s nomination gives Colbert’s writers their best—and final—shot at ending Oliver’s streak. Last Week Tonight has won Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series every year since 2016, turning the category into one of the Emmys’ most reliable coronations.

But this year’s race has a different shape. The Late Show has already signed off. Its farewell season rallied much of the entertainment community around Colbert. And now its writers, after making a direct appeal to voters, are officially on the ballot.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! gives the category another serious late-night contender. Kimmel’s show is coming off an extraordinary season itself, and its presence here makes the final race less a simple Colbert-versus-Oliver referendum than a three-way contest among established comedy rooms.