The Television Academy has agreed to some rule changes, including restoring the separate movie and miniseries categories as well as splitting reality program and voice-over categories.
- Feb 21, 2014
AceShowbiz - TV movies won't compete with miniseries again at this year's Primetime Emmy Awards. Recognizing the growing number of longform programs, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences voted on Thursday night, February 20 to restore the two separate categories which were merged in 2011.
The TV Academy approved this following a petition from several constituencies within the TV industry, including FX Network, 20th Century Fox Television and HBO, to undo the merge which started three years ago. "As with miniseries and movies, there is a general industry uptrend in two different types of narrative reality programming and the split accommodates that trend," the Academy explained the revision.
Although the programs will be separate, awards for actors, writers and directors in the two genres will be still combined. However, the number of nominees will expand from five to six, allowing more great talent to be acknowledged for their works in these two fields.
The Academy additionally voted to split the Outstanding Reality Program Category into Outstanding Structured Reality Program, such as "MythBusters", and Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program, like "Duck Dynasty", because of "a general industry uptrend in two different types of narrative reality programming."
The Outstanding Voice-Over Category will also be split into two, Outstanding Narrator and Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance. Meanwhile, outstanding comedy and drama series categories may expand the nominees from six to seven as they apply the 2|percent| rule to both categories now.
"Under this change, a comedy or drama series whose total first-round votes are within 2|percent| of the sixth place series would also receive a nomination, creating the possibility of seven nominees in each category," they explained in a statement. "Previously the 2|percent| rule had only applied to categories with five nominees."
The 2014 Emmy Awards will be held Monday, August 25 and air live coast-to-coast from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles at 8-11 P.M. ET / 5-8 P.M. PT. No host is announced for the ceremony yet.
