On Thursday morning, Uzo Aduba from Orange is the New Black, and So You Think You Can Dance hostess Cat Deeley will announce the 2015 Emmy Award nominations. However, they won't need nearly as much coffee as their predecessors. This year the Emmy nominations will be announced at 8:30 a.m. PT/11:30 a.m. ET. The event will be covered by most major news networks. You can also stream the nominations announcement on the Emmy website.
In the past, the nominations press conference came three hours earlier. This news is kind of a bummer, because one of the best things about announcements like these is watching how tired everyone is while trying to make a public statement. They don't look all that glamorous and sleepy mistakes are inevitable. Then again, if you share my "draft day"-level of enthusiasm for entertainment awards, the nominations themselves are exciting enough no matter what time.
What happened? Did Hollywood get tired of catering to the East Coast's obvious dominance and better-ness by getting up at a reasonable time for us and not them? I'm joking, but that's not too far off from the truth. The Hollywood Reporter ran a statement from the Television Academy earlier this year that explained why they decided to relax and sleep in before releasing the nominees.
"Because of the speed in today’s 24/7 viral news cycle we all receive news and information in real time from multiple media sources and on various platforms. The Academy believes this new time — one that saves everyone getting up so early in the morning for the nominations ceremony — reflects this sensibility and is a forward-looking and effective way to kick off the Emmy season."
They make a good point. We no longer live in an era with different newspapers for different times of day. A day is not defined by a particular time zone in the media anymore. News happens at all hours, and we're accustomed to receiving news whenever it happens thanks to the internet.
This isn't the only thing changing about the television awards this year. There have been several Emmy rule changes for 2015 that also reflect an attempt to keep up with modern trends and viewing habits. Variety show category has been split into two categories for talk shows and sketch shows. A narative series must run for approximately an hour to be considered for drama categories and approximately 30 minutes to be considered for comedy. Individual series must petition the Television Academy if they want to be an exception. This mostly affects Orange is the New Black, an hour-long dramedy. The Netflix series is also affected by a redefinition of the term "guest star" to only include actors appearing in less than half of a season's episodes.
The Academy also, to my personal relief, has ditched the mini-series category and changed it to "limited series" — which according to the official press release is defined as "any narrative series with at least two but no more than five episodes" or a series longer than two episodes that "tells a complete, non-recurring story, and do not have an ongoing storyline and/or main characters in subsequent seasons." With shows like True Detective and American Horror Story on the scene, these rule changes are necessary.
All in all, it'll be interesting to see how this shakes out on Thursday morning, even if it's a little later in the day than we are accustomed. Enjoy your good night's sleep, Hollywood!
Images: Giphy (2)
