5 Shows Land in New Emmy Variety Race as 90% Rule Could Produce Multiple Winners

Q: With the new 90% vote rule, could the Emmys' most unpredictable category actually end up with no winner?

No. Even under the new “area award” format for Outstanding Variety Series, the category is not expected to end with no winner. The Academy’s announced change means nominees are no longer judged strictly head-to-head. Instead, each program is evaluated on whether it merits an Emmy, with a 90% “yes” threshold creating the possibility of multiple winners. But the reporting tied to this year’s rule change indicates that if no nominee reaches that bar, the program with the highest level of support would still win. In practical terms, that preserves at least one winner. That also aligns with the broader Emmy rules framework, which traditionally says the winner is the nominee receiving the highest number of votes, with ties producing multiple winners. The confusion comes from the new “area” designation, which changes how the category is judged, not whether the Academy can leave it empty. So the unpredictability is real, but it cuts in a different direction: the category could produce more than one winner, not none. With nominees including “The Daily Show,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “Saturday Night Live,” the bigger question is whether any of them can clear the unusually high threshold — and if not, which one still emerges on top.

3 articles · Updated · Deadline · Jul 8

The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Saturday Night Live were nominated Wednesday for the newly merged Outstanding Variety Series Emmy.
The five-way field stems from the TV Academy combining Outstanding Talk Series and Outstanding Scripted Variety Series, collapsing late-night and sketch contenders into one category.
A 90% threshold now applies because the category was reclassified as an area award, creating the unusual possibility that more than one nominee could win on Sept. 14.
John Oliver enters as the dominant recent contender with 10 straight Emmys, while Colbert won last year and SNL previously took six consecutive scripted-variety trophies from 2017 to 2022.