‘Last Week Tonight’ Switches Categories, Still Wins Emmy

and each came into Monday’s on a long winning streak. Thanks to being thrown into a new category together, at least one of those streaks was bound to end. s six year streak fell as took home the Emmy in the newly created category of scripted variety series. The category came into being this year that grouped with sketch comedy shows and .

The change moved out of the talk show category it has dominated in recent years as the Television Academy decided it is materially different than programs like Comedy Central’s , CBS’ and NBC’s . Despite the change, though, won an outstanding series Emmy for the eighth straight year. After thanking the show’s staff, Oliver also said, “Thank you to our lawyers, who are angry with us all the time.” Oliver also had some fun with the “play off mama” bit at the , filling the remainder of his acceptance speech with names of players from Liverpool FC before host Anthony Anderson’s mom, Doris, rose from her seat to say his time was up.

Per Anderson’s instructions at the top of the show, Oliver closed with “Thank you to Jesus and my family.” Per TV Academy rules, scripted variety series are “programs that are primarily scripted or feature loosely scripted improv and consist of discrete scenes, musical numbers, monologues, comedy stand ups, sketches, etc.,” as opposed to a variety talk series that’s predominantly made up of host guest interviews.

also airs weekly, while four of the five variety talk series — all but — are nightly shows. THR Newsletters Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day More from The Hollywood Reporter.