Last year’s Emmy Awards broadcast was the least watchable I’ve ever seen (and I’ve been watching them forever). It seemed sparse, hollow, and low-budget. Most of the skits were not funny in the slightest. They seemed intent on driving away older viewers (my mother-in-law couldn’t take watching it after about 30 minutes), without having any idea how to appeal to a younger crowd. The structure of the show was awkward and disconnected – announcing the nominees, then bringing out celebrity presenters to banter, and then announcing the winners. By the time they got to presenting each award, I forgot who was nominated.
Aside from the unfortunate structure of the show, the Emmys continues to award TV series that most people haven’t seen, which only serves to depress ratings. How many viewers have actually watched The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (best actress, supporting actress in a comedy), Barry (best actor, supporting actor in a comedy), The Americans (best actor in a drama), The Crown (best actress in a drama), Westworld (best supporting actress in a drama) or Godless (best supporting actor and actress in a limited series)? Not many. Game of Thrones (outstanding drama series, best actor) was the lone major award winner with a sizable audience.
The Emmys have alternated broadcast networks over the years because of the once true notion that the telecast is a major promotional vehicle for all the broadcast networks. This, of course, is no longer the case. Of the 67 major comedy and drama nominees – best comedy, best drama, and the actor/actress and supporting actor/actress categories – HBO and Netflix led the way with a combined 29 nominations (43%), 16 and 13, respectively, while the five broadcast networks accounted for a total of just 15 (22%), five of which were for Saturday Night Live.
None of the major acting or outstanding series awards for comedy or drama went to a broadcast network show. In fact, a broadcast series hasn’t won best drama since 24 in 2006. In 2017, This is Us was the first broadcast drama even nominated in six years (it was also nominated in 2018). In 2018, Black-ish was the only broadcast network comedy nominated. This year, there may be none (unless they decide to honor the final season of Big Bang Theory).
TV series that air on different venues have different creative limitations based on levels of language, sex, and violence, and whether they must answer to advertisers. Having them all compete with one another is inherently unfair, and works against the more traditional broadcast networks. The obvious solution is to divide the awards into three categories – ad-supported, premium cable, and streaming services.
For the ad-supported drama category, we might see This is Us, Madam Secretary, Better Call Saul, Killing Eve, Yellowstone, and Pose competing with one another. For premium cable we might see competition among Game of Thrones, Westworld, Homeland, Big Little Lies, American Gods, Billions, and Vida. And for streaming dramas we might get The Handmaid’s Tale, competing with Ozark, Bosch, Bodyguard, The Good Fight, Stranger Things, and The Crown. We’d get a similarly diverse group of shows in the comedy categories.
We also might get to see some stellar acting performances such as Titus Welliver (Bosch), Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones), Alice Braga (Queen of the South), Billy Bob Thornton (Goliath), and Giovanni Ribisi (Sneaky Pete) – finally get some well-deserved Emmy recognition.
This way, more television series that people have actually seen would be up for major awards without negatively impacting the high-quality shows that are only available to half the country or less. There’s little doubt that ratings would improve as well. Otherwise, let Netflix or HBO have the Emmys. In its current form it has become a vehicle to promote the broadcast networks’ competitors, so why not let one of them air it. Given that the broadcast networks have just extended their rights to alternate the award show, however, now would be a good time to implement these changes.
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