Emmys Preserve Live Thank Yous
On second thought, the Emmy Awards will be totally, completely live, even the potentially long-winded parts.
Organizers of the 57th annual Primetime Emmy Awards have ditched a plan to ostensibly speed up the telecast by trading live acceptance speeches by winners in several categories for pretaped thank yous.
In a meeting Monday night by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ board of governors, it was decided that the change would not save time. It was further decided that the change would drive up production costs. It was then decided the change would go–and the live speeches would stay.
“What we found was that some of the initial assumptions were not accurate,” the academy said in a statement.
The academy was driven to assumptions after last September’s Emmy telecast was watched by 13.8 million, the second-lowest tally on record since a then-fledgling Fox aired the show back in 1990. In April, the show’s powers that be decided that pretaping acceptance speeches would reduce “travel time to the stage,” and, in the process, make the award distribution process “more compelling and entertaining for the television viewer.”
But not everyone’s “travel time” was on the chopping block. Speeches by stars in the comedy and drama series acting categories were golden; speeches by writers and directors were not.
As announced last spring, the Emmys was looking to cut live camera time for writers and directors in all categories. Also relegated to the B-list were the Outstanding Variety/Music and Outstanding Miniseries and TV Movie categories. Even the Supporting Actor and Actress categories in the miniseries/TV movie division were to be “subject to overall time considerations.”
Following Monday’s vote, though, all Emmy winners in the 27 featured races will be treated equally come awards night.
In reversing course, the Emmys should avoid the grumblings that were heard at the Academy Awards, when certain categories–i.e., those not involving the main attractions of the red carpet–were subject to group or in-your-seat presentations. Like the Emmys, the Oscars was looking to pick up the pace, and pick up viewers. In the end, the ratings were marginally down from the previous year.
The 57th annual Primetime Emmy Awards are scheduled to be presented Sept. 18 on CBS.
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