Donald Trump’s fiercest TV critics will compete against one another in a new combined Emmys category, with some facing off for the very first time.
The Television Academy announced it will merge its talk and scripted variety categories in January.
The resulting nods for this year’s Emmy Awards pit Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Saturday Night Live, and the freshly axed Late Show with Stephen Colbert against each other in the new “Outstanding Variety Series” category.
Last year’s race for “Outstanding Talk Series” pitted Colbert, Kimmel, and Stewart against each other, and Colbert ultimately won. Oliver also beat SNL for the third time in the “Scripted Series” category.
Combining all five shows makes the race one to watch, though Deadline reports more than one show may take home a trophy in the category due to a big voting change.
The separate Talk Series and Scripted Variety Series were previously competitive, meaning the Academy voted for a single winner. The newly combined category has been designated as an area award, meaning voters will evaluate each program individually to determine whether it merits an Emmy. Any show that reaches 90 percent “Yes” votes from the awards body will get a trophy.
Each of the show’s competitors has drawn Trump’s ire at some point in MAGA 2.0, though The Late Show is the only one to have been discontinued (CBS’s parent company, Paramount, insists that The Late Show was canceled for “purely financial” reasons).
The past year’s showdowns between Trump and the rest of Emmy-nominated late-night television, none of which have backed down from hitting the president, may still make the race a tight one despite the new combined category’s designation.
