Steve Pond: Emmy Voters Face the Usual Dilemma of Too Many Nominations for Too Few Shows

More than 35% of this year's acting nominations went to only four shows [Emmy Voters Face the Usual Dilemma: Too Many Nominations for Too Few Shows]( [Emmy Award statuettes]( When final voting for the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards begins next Thursday, the 20,000-plus voting members of the Television Academy will be put in the position of essentially deciding a bunch of family squabbles. Two lead actors from “Only Murders in the Building,” Steve Martin and Martin Short, will be competing against each other in one category. Two actresses from “The Morning Show,” Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, will face off in another. Two from “The Bear” in two different categories, three from that show in another. Two from “Shogun” here, two from “Abbott Elementary” there. Three from “The Morning Show” in the supporting actor in a drama series category, and four (out of seven) from that show in supporting actress. Those last stats led to an email that hit my inbox a few hours after the Emmy nominations were announced on July 17. It came from a voting lobbyist I’d met years ago when his support for ranked-choice voting in political elections dovetailed with my interest in the way the Oscars uses that voting system for its nominations. The subject line of his email read “Emmys nominations and approval voting again at work! Morning Show has 7 of 14 supporting actor/actress nominations,” and the email itself started this way: “And so it continues!” And so it did. For years, Emmy voters have had the habit of showering a handful of programs with lots of acting nominations, culminating in 2022 and 2023, when “Succession” set a new record for a series with 14 acting noms and then equaled that record the following year. This year wasn’t quite as blatant, with the top two shows, “The Bear” and “The Morning Show,” landing 10 acting nominations each — but it still had some jaw-dropping consequences, such as the latter show’s dominance in the supporting categories. It led to an email chain between the ranked-choice advocate, me and a former voting coordinator for the Oscars. I pointed out that the “Morning Show” stats were far from the only examples at this year’s Emmys: “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” grabbed five of the 10 nomination slots in the guest acting categories in drama, while “The Bear” took five of the 12 in guest comedy acting. Overall, 27 different programs received acting nominations, but the top four of those shows got more than 35% of all the nominations, and the top seven shows had more nominations than the next 20. “Remarkable numbers!” replied the voting maven. “I assume some decision makers are taking notice.” But to quote a melancholy Dane: “Ay, there’s the rub.” The decision-makers at the Television Academy have taken notice — a couple of years ago, when the category-hogging seemed to be aided by Emmy rules that allowed voters to cast their ballots for an unlimited number of contenders. So the Emmys changed the rules: Beginning last year, if a category qualified for five nominees, an Academy member could only click on five names on his or her ballot; if it had seven nominees, you could pick seven. On paper, that might have encouraged voters to spread the love a little more, and to be less inclined to dump all their votes on the same shows. In practice, though, it didn’t seem to change anything. “Succession” got 14 acting noms before the rule changed and it got 14 after the rule changed.  [Read the rest of Steve Pond’s Awards Beat column here.]( [Read More]( --------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------- [WrapPRO logo] Discover why entertainment executives and professionals rely on the WrapPRO platform daily for exclusive coverage, analysis, deeper reporting, and access to VIP events & screenings throughout the year. [Subscribe Today]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [YouTube]( TheWrap | 2034 Armacost Ave Los Angeles, CA 90025 [Preferences]( | [Unsubscribe]( [LiveIntent Logo]( [AdChoices Logo](