Seth Meyers finally broke into the Emmys late night club

After eight years and hundreds of “closer looks” on the deranged state of American politics, Late Night with Seth Meyers was finally recognized by the television academy.

When the nominations for Outstanding Variety Talk Series were announced Tuesday morning, Seth Meyers’ late-night show was included along with perennial nominees Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah and John Oliver, whose HBO series Last week tonight took home the award for the sixth year in a row.

It was a big moment for the NBC franchise, which has been nominated for its writing for the past several years but has never broken through to the main category, which will be awarded during its September broadcast on the same network.

This time has been removed from the list Frontal Hostess Samantha Bee, who repeatedly found herself the only female late-night host with a nomination during President Trump’s four-year tenure.

late night’s nomination comes after an unusual push by late-night showrunners who protested a decision that would have reduced the Outstanding Variety Talk Series category from five nominees to four. Traditionally, a category must receive at least 20 submissions to earn five spots, but this year there were only 19. The executive producers’ campaign prompted the Academy to change their rules so that the number of submissions is divided by four and then rounded up.

It was almost certainly this rule change that opened the door to Meyer’s show, which Emmy voters clearly appreciate for their writing but have been historically underappreciated as a whole.

During some late night shows – like Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight show and James Cordens Late Late Show, neither of which made the cut — having strayed even further from politics in the post-Trump era, Meyers has used his segment “A Closer Look” to laser-focus on the lingering fallout of Trump’s presidency. Over the past year, this has provided deep insights into the rise of Ron DeSantis, Tucker Carlson’s dangerous rhetoric, and the January 6 Committee bombshells.

In many ways, Meyers’ long, late-night “A Closer Look” segments come closest to the in-depth explorations of big social and political issues that helped John Oliver win Emmy after Emmy after Emmy Last week tonight. But unlike Oliver, who only posts half an hour a week, Meyers delivers four solid hours of content, including occasionally from home with COVID.

So no presenter has managed to beat Oliver since Jon Stewart won the Emmy for his final season of The daily News 2015, if anyone can, it might be Meyers.

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