Jimmy Kimmel Live! just had its biggest Emmy morning yet.
The ABC late-night show earned six Emmy nominations this year—the most the show proper has received in a single year since its 2003 launch.
This year’s nominations are for Outstanding Variety Series, Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series, Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series, Outstanding Technical Direction and Camerawork for a Series, Outstanding Lighting Design/Lighting Direction for a Series, and Outstanding Production Design for a Variety or Reality Series.
The milestone arrives after an unusually turbulent season for the show. Last September, ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! indefinitely following Kimmel’s monologue comments about the killer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, a move that came after FCC chair Brendan Carr pressured ABC affiliates to drop the show. ABC reinstated the show days later, with Kimmel returning to air on September 23.
The six nominations give the season a very different kind of coda, a tacit recognition of the unusual place Kimmel now occupies in late night: host, producer, political lightning rod, and standard-bearer for a format that keeps finding itself pulled into much bigger fights than monologue jokes.
And Kimmel’s Emmy count didn’t end there Wednesday morning. The host was also nominated for his work on ABC’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire—in another two categories: Outstanding Game Show and Outstanding Host for a Game Show.
Final-round Emmy voting begins August 17 and runs through August 26 at 10 p.m. PT. Winners will be announced September 14, when the 78th Emmy Awards air live on NBC and Peacock from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.
