A stack of Emmy winners will be made this weekend, a full week before NBC's main telecast, and the Television Academy would like the audience to notice. [1] In July the Academy moved several high-profile categories — including supporting actor and supporting actress in a limited series — onto the Labor Day weekend shows still branded Creative Arts. Katey Rich of The Ankler published Monday a conversation with Academy president Maury McIntyre that lands three days before those ceremonies. [1]
McIntyre, a former Disney marketing executive who has led the Academy since 2014, does not love the name. "We look at this as weekend one," he told Rich. "The Creative Arts brand kind of made it sound like that was a different award, but it's not. Every award we give over the next two weekends is the same Emmy Award." [1] Guest-acting prizes have lived on that earlier weekend for years. Adding limited-series supporting races, plus writing and directing for limited series and writing for a variety series, is the new insult, or the new experiment, depending on who is holding the nomination. [1]
McIntyre calls the move an effort to "re-energize the show." He also says, with less varnish, that it is meant to give the Academy "a better edge" as it tries to strike a new broadcast-rights deal after the current one expires this year. [1] That is the sentence the institutional framing usually omits. Ratings for awards shows keep sinking. A rights negotiation is not a taste debate. It is a clock.
The supporting nominees in limited series include David Harbour, Linda Cardellini, Dakota Fanning, and Charles Melton. [1] McIntyre's consolation prize is a double walk. Win or lose, those actors will be invited back to the main telecast as guests. "They will actually get both experiences," he said. They can work the media on night two and return the following week for the full red carpet. [1] The two Creative Arts nights are not live. They will air as a combined package on FXX on Sept. 12. [1]
McIntyre acknowledges that not "everyone's hunky-dory" with the shift. He also boxes it as a one-year trial. "You've got to try something to see how it works, and if it doesn't work, we're going to try something else." [1] Rich notes that the pushback never reached the volume that has, more than once, forced Oscar producers to reverse a ceremony tweak. [1] Publicists, in her reporting, say many nominated stars will still attend Sunday, when the scripted categories are announced. [1]
The candid version of Creative Arts, McIntyre suggests, is the fun one. "Night one is a lot more boisterous," he said of the reality and non-fiction evening. People are "a lot more candid sometimes in their speeches." They know a package may run on FXX. "They're just up there having a good time." [1] That is a lovely description of a room that no longer has to carry the broadcast. It is also an admission that the main telecast is the product being redesigned for a buyer who has not yet signed.
The Oscars are headed to YouTube. Rich's guess is that the Emmys' next "something else," once the rights deal is struck, will be more dramatic than moving supporting trophies off Monday night. [1] Until then, the Academy is asking limited-series actors to collect the same statue on a different weekend and to call the demotion a second experience.
-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles