Daytime Emmys Confirm Irregularities In New Report

There have been many scandals involving the Daytime Emmys over the years. However, now, some faux pas has been avoided thanks to some eagle eyes within the organization.

Variety has published a story revealing that the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has released an internal report detailing some irregularities that went on in this year’s competition.

Fortunately, the issues were all caught and/or dealt with ahead of time so that Emmy winners weren’t affected. The report doesn’t go into specifics so, it’s not clear whether or not soaps were involved.

Adam Sharp, NATAS‘ president and CEO, commissioned an independent investigation into its voting after last year’s snafu that resulted in Patrika Darbo (Mickey, The Bay) having her Guest Performer in a Digital Daytime Drama Series revoked.

Sharp commissioned an independent investigation into its voting process, and promised to institute changes suggested by the findings, and as a follow-up agreed to this year’s transparency report.

The accounting firm of Lutz & Carr helped bring the following to NATAS’ attention this year:

1) One judge awarded a perfect score to an entrant and handed out zeroes to other contenders. Thus, the ballot was disqualified, but this didn’t affect the outcome.

2) Another judge gave perfect scores to all contenders that were from a particular network while handing out the lowest score to other entrants. After discovering a connection existed between the judge and the network, the judge’s ballot was disqualified. The ultimate winner in this category remained the same.

3) Another judge gave a top score to one nominee but “extremely low scores” to the other candidates. A connection between the judge and the network that got the top score couldn’t be fully determined, however, the judge’s ballot was tossed as a precaution. Again, the ultimate winner was not affected.

4) Two of eight judges awarded top scores to candidates from a single network and other candidates received minimum scores. Ballots were eliminated after accountants discovered a shared affiliation between the network and the judges. This affected the nominees, but not the ultimate winner.

5) It was brought to light that a judge was taking login details from other judges and voting on their behalf, but there was no concrete evidence of this happening. In this case, the judges’ votes remained.

6) The digital drama series Love Daily was disqualified after NATAS learned that the submission was re-edited from a previous production.

7) A show that is no longer available to be viewed was allowed to keep its pre-nomination because it was available during the eligibility period.

8) Another series was deemed ineligible after it came to light that it had been submitted for a Prime Time Emmy. (Rules state that you can only submit once for either a Daytime or a Prime Time Emmy.)

Finally, the report says that for next year’s awards, NATAS will focus on expanding its pool of judges.