For the first time in memory, the Television Academy announced this year’s Primetime Emmys nominees without an acknowledgement of which network or platform leads the list. That left programmers like HBO and Netflix scrambling to count their nominations in the quest for this year’s bragging rights.
Instead, the TV Academy argues that the shows are the thing, and to that end, the tally was clear: “Succession” was the most-nominated program of 2022, earning 25 nods — including outstanding drama. That was followed by “Ted Lasso” with 20 nominations (including best comedy, tying its total from last year) and then “The White Lotus,” the most-recognized limited series with 20.
The Academy’s decision to stay out of the way of those network tallies comes after controversial, and sometimes inconsistent, counts in recent years as the streaming era makes the whole notion of networks a bit hazy. Eventually, after everyone scrambled to do the math themselves, it became clear that the combo of HBO/HBO Max led this year with 140 nominations (108 for HBO, 32 for HBO Max), followed by Netflix with 105.
Last year, that led to a bit of a messy situation where HBO and HBO Max were jointly crowned the year’s leader, with 130 nominations. The outlets are both operated under the same Casey Bloys umbrella, and the shows are all campaigned together by the same awards team, the argument went. But that didn’t sit well with Netflix, which was close behind with 129 — and would have been considered the leader in a time when different platforms weren’t merged: Separate the two, and HBO received 94 nominations, and HBO Max picked up 36.
FX produces shows for Hulu, but would rather those series be credited to FX — even if they never aired on the linear channel. Nat Geo does the same thing for Disney+, yet those shows are credited to Disney+, not Nat Geo. Similarly, MTV’s “The Real World Reunion” series now airs on Paramount+ — but MTV Entertainment Group prefers to tally its nominations as a conglomerate, not via individual outlets. Disney would like to point out that its entire company (including ABC, Hulu, Disney+, FX Networks and Freeform) should be held up as a whole to Netflix, and in that case, they’re competitive (and last year beat both Netflix and HBO/HBO Max as a combo, with 146).
That’s a long way of saying, the Academy — in allowing networks and platforms to choose how their shows are credited — has also realized that it can’t win by putting them together in an apples-and-oranges tally. So this year, it just didn’t.
“In some ways I think I would prefer the Academy just to step out of the platform, for lack of a better word, ‘wars’ altogether,” TV Academy president Maury McIntyre told Variety in 2021 — and this year he stayed true to his word. “We don’t ultimately care. We’re here to honor the work… Our partners can slice and dice it however they want. We can only go off what we have given from a submission perspective. And that’s how we report it out. How was it reported to us in terms of its platform or its network, etc. But, it’s a question for me moving forward as to whether we should be inserting ourselves in that count.”
HBO had long been the dominant force at the Emmys, until 2018, when Netflix ended the paycabler’s 17-year Emmy nomination domination by landing 112 nods to HBO’s 108. HBO grabbed the crown back in 2019 with 137 nominations (to Netflix’s 117). The Emmy ping-pong continued in 2020, with Netflix’s 160 to HBO’s 107.
In 2019, HBO dominated again — thanks in particular to “Game of Thrones,” which helped the network pull down 137 nominations in 2019, the most ever in the network’s history. Netflix scored 117 nominations that year.
Then came 2020, and Netflix’s 160 nominations — the most of any outlet, ever. HBO, in its final year without HBO Max, followed with 107. It’s that back-and-forth that has turned the Emmy tally into even more of a horserace than it ever was back when the broadcast networks were still in the hunt. HBO and cable changed all of that — and then along came streaming.
Of course, the real crowning will come in September, when the ultimate tally of wins tells the final story. Last year, Netflix earned 44 total awards, ahead of HBO/HBO Max’s 19. In 2020, HBO was tops with 30 wins, followed by Netflix’s 21.
As for this year’s 74th Emmy nominations, the announcement on Tuesday — made by J.B. Smoove and Melissa Fumero, two of the stars of Netflix’s upcoming comedy “Blockbuster” — came after the return of a fairly normal FYC campaign season for the first time since 2019. After a two-year break due to COVID, in-person events returned this year, along with the continuation of virtual panels. That allowed outlets like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, NBCUniversal and Disney to once again open pop-up FYC events spaces. Others welcomed the return of panels to venues like the Academy’s Wolf Theatre at its North Hollywood headquarters.
Rule changes were kept to a relative minimum in 2022, with major tweaks focused on eliminating program time length stipulations for comedy and drama series, as well as further defining what a “limited series” is. The TV Academy also ruled that any film placed on the viewing platform for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be deemed a theatrical motion picture and thus ineligible for the Emmy competition — effectively ending the ability for any documentaries to try their hand at the Emmys if they don’t receive an Oscar nod.
Also, this is the first year that the Television Academy, in cooperation with its New York counterparts at the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, did away with time slot restrictions for their respective Emmy ceremonies, instead opting to focus on genres to define what head to the Primetime, Daytime or newly created Children’s and Family Emmys, among other ceremonies.
Done+Dusted and Hudlin Entertainment will once again produce this year’s Emmy Awards, set to air Sept. 12 on NBC and Peacock at 5 p.m. PT. Ian Stewart, Reginald Hudlin, Byron Phillips and Jane Mun will executive produce the live three-hour telecast that will air globally, with D+D’s Hamish Hamilton as director. A host has not yet been named. See the nominees below.
