After enduring complaints that the Emmy nomination process was responsible for a handful of shows garnering an inordinate number of acting nominations each year, the Television Academy has taken steps to tweak a system that has helped shows like “The White Lotus”, “Dopesick”, “Succession” and “Ted Lasso” rack up enough nominations to flood some categories.
In a rule change announced Tuesday morning, Emmy voters will no longer be able to vote for as many entries in a category as they think are worthy of a nomination, which they have been able to do since 2017. Instead, a new rule specifies: “The number of selections each voting member can make per category in first round voting will now be capped at the number of nominations specified for that category.”
In most cases, that means Television Academy members will be able to vote for five or six candidates in each category, with some categories allowing more. (Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Comedy Series, for example, are set at eight nominees.)
The previous rule, which read, “Vote for all entries in this category that you’ve seen and feel are worthy of a nomination,” allowed voters to check boxes for an unlimited number of contenders, giving a distinct advantage to the higher. profile, the most popular shows that often found almost all of their cast nominated.
“The Television Academy rule is making its voters seem lazier and narrower-minded than they could be,” TheWrap wrote in August. “If you look at the trend since 2017, it’s inescapable that allowing people to vote for everything has damaged the breadth of nominations and damaged the image of those who vote for them.”
The new rule will return the system to what was in place before 2017, when the biggest shows still racked up multiple nominations but didn’t dominate the way they have in recent years.
In another significant rule change, the categories of Featured Variety Talk Series and Featured Variety Sketch Series have been replaced with Featured Talk Series and Featured Scripted Variety Series.
The new categories are defined in this way:
Outstanding Talk Series: Programs in which a significant portion of the runtime consists of unscripted interviews or panel discussions between a host(s) and celebrity or personalities guests. A talk series may include scripted elements and other aspects of a variety series, such as monologues, musical performances, etc., as long as the primary intent of the show is interviews/discussions.
Outstanding Scripted Variety Series: Programs that are primarily scripted or feature loosely scripted improv and consist of discrete scenes, musical numbers, monologues, stand-up comedy, skits, etc. Scripted variety series may occasionally feature unscripted elements, but the primary intent of the series is scripted or realized entertainment.
In recent years, the variety sketch series has been on life support, with fewer rated shows resulting in two straight years with just two nominees in the category. Normally, Television Academy rules would have called for its removal from the category or its absorption into another category, but variety talk is home to “Saturday Night Live,” the most nominated and winningest show in Primetime history. Emmy.
While it remains to be seen how the new categories will affect the competition, it may give “SNL” a slightly larger category to call home.
Other rule changes include combining the Single-Camera and Multi-Camera Picture Editing Comedy categories into a single new category, Outstanding Picture Editing for a Comedy Series; combine single-camera and multi-camera cinematography categories; add triggers that could split categories that reach a certain number of submissions; and making line producers eligible to receive Emmy Awards in four interview and variety categories.
The full list of rules can be found at http://emmys.com/rules/changes.