Secrets Behind the 50th Annual Daytime Emmys Preview

A variety of factors nearly kept The 50th Annual Daytime Emmys broadcast from happening. However, like any good soap opera storyline, this year’s awards are getting a great payoff when the show airs on Friday, December 15 at 9 p.m. on CBS. Soap Hub sat down with Adam Sharp, President and CEO of The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), and Tabatha Starcher, Head of Business Development, The Emmys, about how the Daytime Emmys came together and what viewers can expect at this year’s show.

The 50th Annual Daytime Emmys

It appeared as if the cards were stacked against The 50th Annual Daytime Emmys getting on the air as the whole TV industry was going through both a Writers Guild of America strike and Screen Actors Guild strike this year. However, Sharp and Starcher say that everyone’s goal was to get the awards on TV. After the strikes ended, channels opened up to bring the awards show to life.

Corporate sponsorships and a broadcast partnership with CBS were paramount in bringing the awards to TV so that fans can tune in and find out which of their favorite daytime dramas (and other programs) will take home the gold. For a complete list of nominees, check here.

Starcher concurs that the key to corporate sponsorships and product placement in any show, including The Daytime Emmys, is for the audience not to feel like they’re seeing a commercial during the show, while the client is pleased with their brand getting exposure.

Audiences are quite familiar with the names of Daytime Emmy sponsors (Four Roses Bourbon, Chemist American Gin, Biltmore Wine, Bombas Socks, MAC, Lego Toys, Nestle, Harlem Globetrotters tickets, Hasbro, and Angela’s Clues), but Starcher says that the goal isn’t to simply advertise those brands. “They’re looking for us to help tell their story,” she says. “It’s about [us] learning their stories and finding out how we can best share those stories.

“The best examples [of product placement],” Starcher says, “is where it looks like it belongs there but that the placement comes off as spontaneous. Clients love when it doesn’t look forced.”

Starcher says that the female audience is kept in mind when working out deals with sponsors. “The overwhelming majority of women who watch daytime programming make [key] decisions in the household,” she says.

“The reason we call daytime dramas ‘soap operas’ is because this is where the concept began,” says Sharp of sponsors being incorporated into shows. “These programs began six decades ago as a vehicle to sell soap with Procter & Gamble and other leading brands.”

It’s not just The 50th Annual Daytime Emmys going on this week, but there are also three other NATAS-related celebrations. “We’re actually doing four events in the course of 51 hours this weekend,” says Sharp, who says “mountains were moved” in order to honor the best and brightest in programming before the year came to an end.

There won’t be a dry eye in the house when this year’s In Memoriam segment airs. Every year, individuals who have contributed to daytime programming have died; however, Sharp says 2023 has been devastating as “it just seemed every week, we lost another icon.”

Soap viewers and people in the industry have bid farewell to daytime favorites over the last year, including Elizabeth Hubbard (ex-Lucinda, As the World Turns; ex-Althea, The Doctors), Andrea Evans (ex-Tina, One Life to Live), General Hospital stars Sonya Eddy (ex-Epiphany), Billy Miller (ex-Drew; ex-Billy, The Young and the Restless), and Tyler Christopher (ex-Nikolas), and Arleen Sorkin (ex-Calliope, Days of our Lives).

Since our interview with Sharp and Starcher was conducted, Ellen Holly (ex-Carla, OLTL), Marty Krofft (Land of the Lost; H.R. Pufnstuf), and GH costumer Bob Miller have all passed away, too.

“One of the most difficult aspects of the production is [deciding] who gets into the telecast [In Memoriam] and who doesn’t,” Sharp somberly says. “How do you value a life? The telecast montage will be particularly heavy on those iconic names and faces of people we know. We’ll be putting extra content into the Creative Arts [ceremony] for people behind the scenes.”

There’s going to be a lot to include in this year’s awards in addition to all of the highly anticipated acting categories with tributes to GH for celebrating 60 years and both Y&R and the Daytime Emmys themselves celebrating 50 years. Plus, Daytime Emmy-winner Susan Lucci (ex-Erica, All My Children) will get a bookend statuette to go with her 1999 win for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series when she takes home the Lifetime Achievement Award (see who is presenting it to her here).

“This is our golden anniversary. It’s also Susan Lucci, and we have iconic anniversaries of two soap operas,” Sharp says. “I’m not sure we would have moved these mountains for our 49th or 51st anniversaries.”

The 50th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards will be hosted by Entertainment Tonight‘s Kevin Frazier and Nischelle Turner. The awards will air on CBS on Friday, December 15, from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.