Some of last year’s Emmy winners created quite the controversy. What sparked this was HBO’s decision to submit True Detectives as a drama series and Showtime and Netflix’s move of switching their hour-long series Shameless and Orange Is The New Black (respectively) from the drama category to comedy.
Given the upset and to rid the playing field of any “shades of grey” …
the Television Academy Chairman, Bruce Rosenblum stated, “We are thrilled to announce that our Board of Governors and senior industry executives have taken meaningful time to address, in a forward thinking manner, many of our existing rules and procedures. As our growing membership creates and produces more content for ever-changing platforms, today’s changes in the rules and procedures are vital.
New Emmy Rules: No Hourlong Comedies, More Best Series Nominees, Variety Category Split, Guest Actors Redefined
From this point forward these key changes will be implemented:
- only 30-minute series will be considered comedies, all others are presumed dramas. The Academy has left the door ajar — producers of hourlong series could plead their case to a panel, which will vote whether to make an exception.
- re: the drama series-miniseries debate, renaming the miniseries category as limited series and looking to more clearly define the distinction between series and limited series, with “an ongoing storyline, theme and main characters” from season to season required for series consideration.
- the best drama and comedy series categories will be expanded to 7 nominees. The move will be welcome by drama producers as the proliferation of drama series on cable and digital platforms has made the best drama series field incredibly competitive. It will get even more overcrowded as hourlong comedic series join the race.
- The award for recurring actors in the guest starring categories will now have a cap of an actor appearing in 50% or less of the season’s episodes to be considered a “guest”.
- Saturday Night Live will now have its own category. The Academy will split the variety series category into variety talk show and variety sketch.
- The Academy will expand the pool of Emmy voters and allow everyone eligible to vote in the nomination round to also vote in the final one.
All programs entering the competition this year will be grouped according to these new definitions.
