‘Last Week Tonight With John Oliver’ Pulled From Critics Choice Awards Due To Category Changes

Peter White
·1-min read

Late-night awards controversy continues.

HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver was pulled from consideration for the Critics Choice Awards as a result of a category change.

More from Deadline

The organization changed the rules, stating that only shows that “involve conversation” should be nominated for Best Talk Show at the event. Oliver obviously rarely talks to anyone else on his weekly HBO show, unlike his late-night peers.

ADVERTISEMENT

The news emerged after Hot Ones, The Daily Show, The Graham Norton Show, John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A., The Kelly Clarkson Show and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert were nominated in the category.

Instead, organizers wanted the Avalon-produced show to go into Best Comedy Series, where it would have competed with Abbott Elementary, English Teacher, Hacks, Nobody Wants This, Only Murders in the Building, Somebody Somewhere, St. Denis Medical and What We Do in the Shadows for a nomination.

All of this comes as the Emmys have been struggling with figuring out the best spot for Last Week Tonight.

Oliver has won the Emmy for Outstanding Scripted Variety Series for the past two years, beating Saturday Night Live, after seven consecutive wins in the Outstanding Variety Talk Series category.

Last year, the TV Academy shook up the categories last year, launching Outstanding Scripted Variety Series, alongside Outstanding Talk Series and moved Oliver into the former, going head-to-head with SNL, which had won the award for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series six years in a row starting in 2017.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Critics Choice Awards takes place on Sunday, January 12, at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. THR first reported the news.

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Latest stories