Following a years-long decline in the number of TV shows submitted for consideration in the best scripted variety series and best talk series Emmys categories, the Television Academy’s board of governors has voted to merge the two categories into one, best variety series, effective immediately, the organization announced Wednesday.
This is a return to the way things used to be for the Emmys — indeed, there was a unified variety series category until 2015 — but with a few major differences.
Henceforth, the type of variety submission — scripted variety series or talk series — will continue to be tracked, and the eventual number of nominees in the unified category will be proportional to the number of submissions received for each format. Had the categories been merged last year, the number of nominees, based on the number of submissions, would have been the same: five — two for scripted variety series (which was won by HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver) and three for talk series (which was won by CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert).
If, at some point in the future, there is a resurgence in the variety genre — specifically, if both formats, scripted variety series and talk series, reach 20 submissions in the same year — then the TV Academy will automatically split the categories into two again.
Additionally, the TV Academy is classifying the best variety series category as an “area award,” meaning it could produce multiple winners. Nominees for area awards are judged individually on their own merits, so instead of Emmy voters being asked to identify a category winner, voters will be asked about each nominee, “Does this nominee merit an Emmy? Yes/No.” Any nominee that reaches a 90 percent “Yes” threshold will receive an Emmy. If no nominee reaches the 90 percent threshold, then the nominee with the highest “Yes” percentage will be the sole winner.
In other words, it is possible that Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and NBC’s Saturday Night Live and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show — or any selection thereof — could take home Emmys for best variety series at the 78th Primetime Emmys ceremony next fall.
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