Award shows are entertainment unto themselves. While existing primarily to reward the best creative talents in show business, they also seek to satisfy and validate the opinions of the millions of viewers who keep the business running. Murmurs of dissent echo around the internet — on mainstream outlets, forums, blogs — in a sort of clockwork predictability. After all, it barely needs to be reiterated that a selection of winners automatically creates a faction of disgruntled losers. However, for the Emmys, with each passing year, the selection process itself is likely to get more contentious — and the Awards are likely to disappoint more than delight.
Problem of plenty
The sheer surfeit of excellent television is a thinly veiled bane. What appears like sudden good fortune possibly portends more serious shifts underway in the industry. Take the empirical evidence first. I cannot be the only one who routinely feels spoilt for choice — often confusingly so — when surfing Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. Forget the films on these services; there is just too much television to watch. And this is before we begin considering shows on HBO, FX, Showtime et al.
Netflix alone offers enough original content to satisfy even the most ardent cinephile for endless days. Last year, it produced 600 hours of original programming. According to reports, that number will nearly double to 1,000 hours in 2017. Much of this will, arguably, be high quality content. After all, Netflix shows earned the second highest number of nominations (27 after HBO’s 46) this year, and the number continues to rise with each passing year.
Contrast this to the number of films Hollywood releases in a year — between 500-600, on average — and the edifice of normalcy begins to crumble.
According to a report in Variety, 455 different scripted television series from broadcast, cable, and streaming sources aired in 2016. That’s a 71% increase from 2011, when 266 shows were on television; and a 137% increase from 2006, when there were 192 shows on television. Largely, this increase has been led by online streaming services.
Flip side
While consumers are enjoying the vast buffet on offer, many creators are being unfairly left out. BoJack Horseman, one of the best shows on Netflix (and television) by popular consensus has never quite managed to come into the awards fold.
Rami Malek, the lead actor of Mr Robot — and an award-winner last year — didn’t even make it to the list this year. While Stranger Things earned itself five nominations (not including technical categories), Winona Ryder as the grieving mother wasn’t nominated. The very well-received American Gods received merely two nominations in technical categories. The mind-bending superhero show, Legion — by Fargo creator Noah Hawley — was snubbed entirely. Bizarrely though, House of Cards and Modern Family continue to be nominated.
Playing fair
Some of this, of course, can be attributed entirely to the whims of judges. However, increasingly, there are complaints that the playing field has too many excellent players to choose from, resulting in deserving candidates being overlooked.
There is a popular argument that suggests that the explosion in new content ensures that awards do not keep returning to the same old stalwarts. (Of the seven nominations in The Outstanding Drama category, five have gone to new shows.) This is a particularly stilted way of arguing that new content deserves recognition. Of course it does. Whether there should be an enforced purging of the old because there’s a constant infusion of new shows is rather contentious.
A few years ago, a report in Forbes suggested that the Emmys has made great forward strides in ensuring diversity in their selections since 2005. Race, gender and themes, all are increasingly well-represented. Moreover, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and HBO have also sped up the process of addressing daring themes in shows like Big Little Lies, Fleabagand Marvel’s Jessica Jonesthat might have been deemed too controversial at regular broadcast and cable outlets.
Perhaps the next step will be to ensure that the ever-expanding roster of talented — yet shunned — creators get their due. And, spare a thought for the Emmys judges. Surely it’s an unfathomable task to trawl more than twice as many shows as there were just a decade ago. It cannot all be good news, after all. If there are, on average, twice as many good shows being produced now, that can only point to one heart-breaking conclusion. Twice as many good shows and their creators are losing in the new scheme of things. Ultimately, the pot of gold is still limited and the number of creators has increased vastly.
Catch the 69th Emmy
Awards on September 18 on Star World, Star World HD and Star World Premiere HD, at 5 am.