The TV Academy moving five Emmy categories off its telecast is a bad idea, and it's sparking backlash from the Hollywood industry.
The Emmys ‘F—ed This Up’: Streamers and Networks Are Outraged as Five Categories Get Cut From the Telecastto thin out the categories handed out during its primetime telecast on Sept. 14, after the Board of Governors voted to shift a hodgepodge of five races to the first weekend of ceremonies, once known as the Creative Arts Emmys.
Now it’s all one big Emmys. The five categories: writing for a variety series; supporting actor and supporting actress in a limited or anthology series or movie; directing for a limited or anthology series or movie; and writing for a limited or anthology series or movie. All are scheduled to be handed out on the second night, Sunday, Sept. 6.
CAA Slams Meta for Using Opt-Out Policy for AI Platform Muse Image, Which Can Create Content Using Public Instagram Accounts By our count, about nine additional nominees will now have to attend the first weekend to collect a potential trophy: Jason Bateman Dakota Fanning Nick Offerman Steven Conrad Gabe Rotter and Daniel Pearle Names like Martin Short and Conan O’Brien were already committed for two weekends.
From the outside, you’d assume any nominee wants to show up, celebrate and soak in the festivities. But celebrities and industry professionals lead busy lives, including many with children. For some, Labor Day weekend is the last chance for a trip or a backyard barbecue before the kids head back to school. Now it’s off the calendar.
And not everyone lives in Los Angeles. It also collides with two major film festivals. Venice and Telluride will both be underway that first weekend. By the time the Emmys arrive Monday, Sept. 14, the Toronto International Film Festival will be in full swing.
From a studio and network standpoint, that’s two straight weekends of planning, glam and everything else that goes into getting talent camera-ready for the big show. In recent years, the two Creative Arts nights have been edited into a tape-delayed special on FXX. Talks are ongoing to do the same with these first two nights, but nothing has been confirmed.
So picture it: Harbour, a cultural fixture since “Stranger Things” and now doing career-best work in “DTF St. Louis,” finally wins his much-deserved statuette, and no one at home can watch it happen. What if “Beef” double nominee and supporting actor star Charles Melton makes history as the first Asian winner of the supporting actor field? Is that not worth seeing live?.
“The move doesn’t make much sense, and all they’ve done is piss off a lot of the people and stars they are trying to court and attend their ceremony. I think this will blow up in their face. ” Now listen, and I must admit, there are far bigger, more pressing issues going on in the world aside from Hollywood people giving up their Labor Day weekend to go to an awards ceremony.
In 2023, “Beef” writer-director-producer Lee Sung Jin swept, winning for writing, directing and the limited series itself. He remains one of only a handful of Asian filmmakers to hold an Emmy for directing in any genre category, alongside Tony To, who shared the prize with seven others for the 2002 miniseries “Band of Brothers,” and Hwang Dong-hyuk, who won for the first season of drama “Squid Game” in 2022.
Would this decision have gone down so easily if past winners like Steven Zaillian or Mike White were in the running this year? Lee is also up for writing in a limited series, a category only seven people have ever won more than once: Jane Anderson, Charlie Brooker, James Costigan, Andrew Davies, William Hanley, Abby Mann and Tracy Keenan Wynn. The prospect of the first nonwhite writer accepting that award off-air is deflating.
The artisans already struggle to get the coverage they deserve. What many don’t realize is that the Creative Arts ceremonies have no red carpet. Nominees file in and take their seats with no chance to stop for interviews or share their excitement. And if the Academy suddenly adds a carpet to the second night, how insulting is that to everyone who could have walked it in years past?
Good luck, too, getting press to surrender their Labor Day weekend to cover it. Most awards pundits are already out of town at Telluride and Venice. Those two Creative Arts nights are where guest actors, costume designers, composers and editors get to own the headlines for a day. Now those headlines will be swallowed by A-listers like David Harbour and Linda Cardellini, who land in the same ceremony.
Think about what thatSo what’s the rationale, according to the TV Academy?.
“This is not new, but the Academy’s always been committed to delivering an Emmy telecast that celebrates television, and also creating the best possible viewing experience. But it needs time, and that’s where we really want to find time to create an incredible night of entertainment that celebrates all of the Emmy winners. ” In picking these five categories, Abrego says the goal was to spread the change across disciplines, including performers, writers and directors.
“There’s no perfect solution because every category obviously represents extraordinary work, but we really wanted just to take an approach to be as balanced and as equitable as possible,” he says. “So then, what we really did was rather than concentrating on the change in one discipline or one peer group, it’s a small number of categories across the performances, writing and directing.
” The DGA, SAG-AFTRA and the WGA issued a joint statement expressing their displeasure with the decision to move five categories off thetelecast: “The Emmys exist to celebrate the best of television and the artists who are central to bringing these stories to life. The decision to eliminate these categories from the primetime broadcast devalues the contributions of the talented people the Academy is meant to honor.
An awards show dedicated to recognizing excellence should not reduce recognition for the artists whose work gives it meaning. ” God bless Mariska Hargitay, but plenty of industry analysts scratched their heads when she was announced as host. What will the extra 20 to 30 minutes actually be used for? They say comedic bits or musical acts, but that hardly seems like justification.
Are they going to put the original music and lyrics winner onstage? Will they have a live rendition of The Rembrandts singing the “Friends” theme “I’ll Be There for You? ” Sounds like fun, but is it worth kicking five categories off the telecast? Sources say the reaction from networks and studios was blunt.
Notable executives such as Netflix’s Bela Bajaria and HBO’s Casey Bloys reportedly made pointed calls to the TV Academy to voice their disdain, especially since they are most affected, having the most nominees across those categories. According to multiple sources, the TV Academy is not planning to back down — it is digging in and moving forward.
NBC is hosting this year’s telecast, and surely, it will want to put on the best show possible, but this was a lose-lose situation. Just look at others that have tried this.from the live telecast, handing them out an hour early and editing the speeches back into the show. The industry and awards enthusiasts hated it. Now all categories are handed out live in the same broadcast.
TheWhile many like myself feel passionate about every artist getting their due, I also see the issues laid out in front of them. Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO Maxwhen asked about the telecast what he thought the best option would be for Emmys moving forward: “I really don’t know. I think that obviously award shows have been trying to figure it out.
I think the Grammys have done a really nice job in terms of adapting over the years, and I know everybody’s trying really hard. I don’t know the right answer. ” The Emmys have more than 115 categories, and handing them all out in one live ceremony isn’t realistic. To be fair, the Grammys’ main telecast presents only nine out of 96 categories, recently expanded to 101, with the rest given out earlier that afternoon at the Grammy Premiere ceremony.
The Emmys may look like the show is mimicking that model. But if you’re going to cut, why not streamline the whole thing? Consider that writing for a variety series is the lone moved category where the nominated staffs of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” are in the mix. I’d wager that if Lorne Michaels’ “Saturday Night Live” were on that list, the category wouldn’t have budged.
Then there’s the outstanding variety series race, which stays on the telecast but has become its own puzzle. Earlier this year, the Academy again merged the talk and scripted variety categories into one, a move meant to solve a long-running conundrum as the pool of eligible late-night and sketch shows keeps shrinking. But the fix created a new headache.
As part of the same rule change, outstanding variety series is now an “area” award, meaning the nominees aren’t really competing against one another. Each is independently trying to get at least 90% of voters to answer “yes” to a single question: “Does this nominee merit an Emmy? ” Clear that bar and the show wins, regardless of whether another one does. If no nominee hits 90%, the highest “yes” percentage takes it.
There is always at least one winner, and there could be several. The nominees: Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” ABCs “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” HBO Max’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and NBC’s “Saturday Night Live. ” So here’s the math the Academy may not have considered: if all five clear the bar, that’s five winners and five acceptance speeches.
The 25 to 30 minutes of the telecast that producers hoped to get back are now …If the goal is saving time, I think there are better paths: Streamline the disciplines, keeping the presented categories consistent one year, then rotate which ones move the next. The other is moving the entire genre field, and not just fragments. If most variety categories already exist in the Creative Arts, move them all. Stop splitting the race down the middle.
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