Friday, February 21, 2014

Emmys Add Three Categories

Three nice bits of Emmy news distract us from the Oscar season for a few moments at least.

1) The Emmys have reversed their decision, rightfully so, and will now have separate television movie and miniseries program categories once again. I definitely think this the right decision by the Television Academy. They combined the two when they had a few down years, but it just felt like a punishment for this form of television, and those that work in it. It is nice to see them once again get the recognition they deserve.

2) The Voice-over category is getting a makeover, by splitting into two categories. First there will be the Character voice-over for basically animation. Then, they will have a Narrator category for other programming. Apparently there were complaints that narrators were not getting enough recognition (Lily Tomlin won last year for narration, but that is a rarity in recent years). I think voice-over work is highly underrated, but I do wonder if there will be enough quality contenders here to justify a whole separate narrator category. We'll just have to wait and see...

3) Finally the Television Academy feels the need to respond to the growing number of reality shows, but splitting them into two categories as well: Structured (They use Antiques Roadshow and MythBusters as examples), and Unstructured (Duck Dynasty and Pawn Stars). I guess that this is a necessary change to expand reality honoring, but I think that these category placements will cause confusion among viewers, lead to interesting campaigns and submissions on the part of studios, and will probably honor programs that are simply not worthy.

But overall, despite some concerns, I do applaud the Television Academy for constantly trying to mix it up, and respond to their community and to the growing nature of television. They are certainly more responsive and proactive than their film and music counterparts. And I'm sure that if they think it is not working, they will respond quickly and try something new.

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