For the television obsessed (like myself), few days can make you feel more heartbroken, annoyed and enraged than the day the Emmy Award nominations are announced. You have your favorite shows – whether they’re massive hits or cult darlings – and you know they’re deserving of an Emmy. After all, every week you see the brilliance of your favorite shows. They transport you to a new world, entertain you, move you.
You know better than to get your hopes up, though. You’ve been down this road before – every year, hoping for the best only to have those hopes inevitably crushed by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (you have your own name for them that is better not repeated in public). Months ahead of the announcement you resolve not to care. Who cares what a bunch of old, white men think anyway? (Because, surely, they have to be old, white men, right? Right?)
But then, in the weeks before the nominations are announced critics begin publishing lists of shows they deem most Emmy worthy. Your curiosity gets the best of you. You read one list. Then three. Then you set Google to alert you every time a new one is published. And every time you see a list containing one of those shows you love, every time you read the comment section and find dozens of people just as passionate for the show as you are, you begin to convince yourself, “This is it. This is the year.”
Nomination day rolls around. The announcements are made long before the majority of the country has awoken, ensuring that the Academy has enough time to seek cover should they feel the need. And – surprise, surprise, your favorite shows are nowhere to be seen. In fact, you’re convinced the Academy just substituted last year’s list in for this year’s.
You vow never to be suckered in again. Next year, you say, you’ll be stronger.
But perhaps you’re looking for some way to guarantee the Academy doesn’t crush your hopes and dreams. You could stop watching television and browsing the internet (I know, I’m hilarious), or you could use my handy guide. It works as a strong indicator of whether or not your show would stand a chance of being nominated. It might leave you disappointed, but, at the very least, it will prevent you from having your heart ripped out by the Academy yet again.
The Emmy Nomination Guide
There are seven categories. Each plays into a show’s chances of being nominated. For each category a show “passes”, it stands a better chance of being nominated. The more “fails”, the lower the chance.
1. Ratings – Fairly simple. The more popular, the better.
2. Budget – The Academy essentially wants their television to be feature-length film quality. That requires a lot of money.
3. Genre – The more niche the drama, the worse chance the show has. There are a few outliers, but overall, this holds true.
4. Critical Acclaim – A bit of an odd category. Acclaim often convinces the Academy to nominate new shows, but poor reviews rarely convince them to stop voting for a show they’ve voted on in the past.
5. Aired on Cable – HBO, Showtime, AMC (even Netflix)? The show stands a good chance of being nominated. NBC, ABC or CBS? Not so much.
6. Movie Stars Involved – Similar to the criteria for the show’s budget, the more movie stars involved the better.
7. Number of Prior Nominations – Look at the writers, the directors, the cast. Have any of them been nominated for an Emmy? If so, there’s a good chance they’ll be nominated again. Has the show itself been nominated before? Even better chances. Has someone involved won an Academy Award? They might as well start prepping the Emmy statuette now.
So, a few examples. True Detective? There’s no way the show wouldn’t have been nominated in 2014 as it passes every category. American Horror Story: Coven? It doesn’t pass the genre category, and critical acclaim is mixed, but airing on cable and its prior nominations go a long way. Plus, the Academy seems to love Ryan Murphy.
So why does a show like Hannibal, arguably a similar genre to American Horror Story, and with higher critical acclaim, not get a nomination? Because it fails on ratings, budget, genre and cable.
It’s a sad reality as every year excellent shows are completely overlooked but that is the reality of the Emmy Awards. If, come next awards season, your favorite show matches up with all seven categories, get your party hat and balloons ready because a nomination is almost guaranteed. If you look at this list and find your show failing out of category after category, prepare yourself.