Daytime Emmys: Changes Are Coming…But Will The Soaps Show Up?

The Daytime Emmys are going to look and feel a whole lot different this year, but will it make an actual difference with the four remaining daytime dramas?

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has released findings of a report conducted, related to changes being made within the Daytime Emmys.

The investigation was conducted after representatives at The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, and The Young and the Restless wrote to NATAS asking for changes to be made within the Daytime Emmy organization.

The firm of Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth, a law practice based in Washington. D.C., led the investigation.

Soaps were concerned about voter eligibility, transparency in the voting process, and winners not being revealed until the awards ceremony. There was also a concern raised that the same person who administers the awards should not serve as the producer of the awards ceremony.

A catalyst for these concerns was fan favorite actress Patrika Darbo having her Daytime Emmy rescinded. The actress had won in the category of Outstanding Guest Actor in a Daytime Digital Series for her role as Mickey on The Bay.

Because Darbo had appeared on The Bay previously as Mickey, she was not eligible. Jennifer Bassey was next in line to win the award for her role in the digital drama Anacostia.

However, NATAS made the decision to have there be no winner in her category. This is after Bassey says she had been informed by NATAS that she was going to be given the statuette.

Based on Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth’s recommendations, NATAS intends to adopt the following (per a NATAS press release):

1. We will update and clarify our rulebooks. When we release the 2019 Daytime Emmys® “Call for Entries” on November 12, we will update several category criteria to eliminate opportunities for confusion. We will in particular update the requirements in the performer categories (which are at the heart of much of the concern we heard), and we will more specifically define terms such as “episode” where relevant. Additionally, we will audit the guidelines for our other Emmy® competitions to similarly reduce confusion and differences across competitions.

2. We will provide additional resources to the Daytime Emmys®. The 2018 Daytime Emmys generated ...continue reading on the next page —>

Continue reading on the next page…

2. We will provide additional resources to the Daytime Emmys®. The 2018 Daytime Emmys® generated a record number of entries and tremendous growth in both in-hall and at-home audience, but we did not scale our operations commensurately. We will add at least one full-time and several part-time positions to our Daytime Emmy® Awards team. While all our staff contributes in meaningful ways to every part of the process, we will divide the leadership of this growing team such that — consistent with the report’s recommendations — the competition and show production will be led by different members of our senior executive team.

Senior Vice President David Michaels will again serve as Executive Producer of the May ceremonies, focusing his energies to build on the success of the 2018 shows, but Executive Director Brent Stanton will take independent and separate responsibility for overseeing the competition.

For processes with potentially adverse results, such as entry disqualification, there will be new and additional review steps — a “second pair of eyes” — and there will be new requirements for documentation. This will help ensure that decisions and guidance are consistent and metered out fairly, and that the handling of such events is appropriately documented.

3. We will better articulate and make public our core policies and procedures. We will be tasking the Awards team with more specifically documenting and publishing:
a. the procedures for reporting and investigating concerns about the awards competition, entries, nominees and winners;
b. the guidelines and “checklist” for vetting and potentially disqualifying entries;
c. the process and criteria by which we or our accountants select judges, break ties, and/or nullify judges’ ballots;
d. internal rules and safeguards that ensure consistent application of our policies;
and
e. other matters as we identify.

We will distribute these improved resources as they are completed in the coming months, and will provide coaching around and strict enforcement of these policies and procedures.

4. We will apply our rules consistently and transparently. We will no longer readily grant deadline extensions or other extraordinary exceptions to our rules. Any technical assistance or waiver we grant must be provided equally to all entrants in an affected category, if not the competition as a whole. And any such assistance or waiver will be documented.

Finally, at the end of the competition we will prepare a Transparency Report, providing a high-level summary of how our rules were employed and enforced over the course of the competition.

5. We will seek to work more closely with the Television Academy. Recognizing that participants in the Daytime Emmy® competition may be more likely to be members of the Television Academy than of NATAS, we hope to better engage our sister Academy in our processes (as representatives of their members). These efforts could include:
– More consciously prioritizing Television Academy membership as a criterion for
judging participation;
– Requesting that the Television Academy reinstate sending emails to their
membership encouraging participation as Daytime Emmy® judges;
– Inviting a representative of the Television Academy and its members to begin
participating again in our Daytime Emmy® nomination cut-off calls; and
– Inviting a representative of the Television Academy to review questioned
submissions, observe backstage operations, and/or be present for the
application of statue bands at the Daytime Emmy® ceremony.

The release added: “We appreciate that the missteps of this and of past years may have impacted some entrants’ confidence in the Daytime Emmy® Awards, and we are absolutely committed to earning back their trust. We believe that through these and other improvements, we will once again meet the expectations all participants rightfully have of us.”

No word yet on how these changes are going to be received by the four broadcast soaps and if they will be sufficient enough to ensure that the four daytime dramas participate in next year’s awards.

The 46th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony is set for Sunday, May 5, 2018.