Awards HQ April 26: We’re Back! Netflix FYSee Details, Emmy Frontrunners, Oscar Secrets

First off, let’s confirm yet again that Regina King makes everything better. She was a highlight of the Emmys, and she opened this year’s Oscars with style, class and a wonderful walk and talk — featuring a small trip that made her all the more fun.

You’ve seen the criticisms about this year’s show, and I’m not here to pile on. As we just reported, the ratings were down — as expected — averaging 9.85 million viewers in Nielsen Live+Same Day preliminary national numbers, down 58.3% from last year. It scored a 1.9 rating among adults 18-49 in the fast national ratings, a 64.2% dip from 2020.

That’s the truth for every live awards show in these pandemic times. Unfortunately, the trend toward audiences watching less live TV became a flood during COVID, and I’m not sure it will ever return.

But let’s get to the fun stuff. I talked to Rob Mills, ABC’s executive VP of unscripted and alternative entertainment at Walt Disney Television, after the Oscars on Sunday night to give us the lowdown on how this year’s ceremony came together.

“There was a lot of really great risks that some might view didn’t pay off,” Mills said. “But it was just great to do something different and not know what was going to happen next — and not have those glazed eyes of, ‘Oh gosh, I’ve seen this before I know exactly what’s going to happen.’”

Oscars producers Steven Soderbergh, Stacey Sher and Jesse Collins had promised a unique telecast this year, and by the end of Sunday night’s show, it was definitely unlike any other Academy Awards in recent memory.

The show kicked off with universal high marks for King, who opened the Oscars while guiding cameras into Union Station’s breathtaking main ticket concourse, featuring a gorgeous multi-level seating area constructed specifically for the telecast.

After that, reactions grew mixed as the evening went on and social media buzzed with questions about the show: Where were the clips? Are these acceptance speeches longer than usual? How does Glenn Close know “Da Butt?” And, confusing audience members the most, why didn’t the Oscars close with the best picture winner like it normally does?

Get the scoop and read more here.

Yep, the folks at Film Independent want a piece of that sweet TV action, and last week unveiled the winners in their first-ever television categories. The rule is only first-year shows are eligible, which seems to give limited series a bit of a leg up. And indeed, in year one, it was HBO’s “I May Destroy You” and Netflix’s “Unorthodox” that ruled.

If there was any TV show that embraces the independent spirit, it’s absolutely “I May Destroy You,” the deeply personal series created by and starring Michaela Coel.

“I May Destroy You” had already been recognized as best ensemble cast in a new scripted series prior to the ceremony, and also picked up the first-ever award for best scripted series. That gives it a nice boost as the Emmy For Your Consideration season gets underway. The show was heralded last summer as one of the best new series of the year — but it premiered last June 7, which feels almost a lifetime ago. The show was shut out of the Golden Globes, much to the chagrin of critics.

Read my take here.

RELATED: The State of Indie TV: Producers Adjust to a Bumpy and Rapidly Changing Landscape

Television dominated the roster of nominees for the 2021 MTV Movie & TV Awards, which returns this May after a year-long hiatus due, at least in part, to the COVID-19 pandemic. But with the kind of crowd-pleasing, popcorn-ready films that the MTV awards show normally celebrates mostly delayed due to the pandemic, TV has taken a front seat this year.

Leading this year’s roster of nominees: Marvel’s Disney Plus series “WandaVision,” which earned five nods — including best show, best performance in a show (Elizabeth Olsen), best hero (Teyonah Parris), best villain (Kathryn Hahn) and best fight (Wanda vs. Agatha).

Receiving four nods were Netflix’s “Emily In Paris” (which is produced by MTV Studios) and Amazon Prime Video’s “The Boys.” Earning three are Netflix’s “Bridgerton,” Disney Plus’ “The Mandalorian” and the most-recognized film of the year, Amazon Studios’ “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”

Simultaneously, MTV also announced the nominees for the first-ever edition of its spin-off ceremony “Movie & TV Awards: Unscripted.” In that show, VH1’s RuPaul’s Drag Race leads all nominees with four, followed by two for TLC’s “90 Day Fiancé,” Netflix’s “Bling Empire,” HBO Max’s “Legendary,” VH1’s “Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta, MTV’s “The Challenge,” Netflix’s “Nailed It!” and MTV’s ubiquitous “Ridiculousness.”

The 2021 “MTV Movie & TV Awards” will air live on Sunday, May 16 from the Palladium in Los Angeles at 9 p.m. ET; the inaugural “Movie & TV Awards: Unscripted” will air the following night, May 17 at 9 p.m. ET.

Read more here.

FX’s “A Teacher” stars Kate Mara as Claire Wilson, a young teacher at a suburban Texas high school who instigates an inappropriate relationship with her student Eric Walker, played by Nick Robinson. Hannah Fidell created the limited series, and also serves as writer, director and executive producer. (It’s based on her film of the same name.) We asked her to fill out the return of “Watch My Show,” the showrunner survey that we’ve reworked into seven questions. Yes, we love alliteration, and that’s why it’s now the Showrunner Seven.

Sum up your show’s pitch in one sentence.
A Teacher explores the complexities and consequences of an illegal relationship between a high school teacher (Kate Mara) and her student (Nick Robinson).

What’s an alternate title for your show? 
Oof, this is hard and is why we ended up keeping the title “A Teacher.”

What do we need to know before tuning in? 
This show wasn’t meant to be an easy watch but it’s worth it!

Give us an equation for your show. (Blank plus blank minus blank times blank, etc.)
missed youth + unhappy marriage + abuse of power = “A Teacher”

What’s the best thing someone said about your show?
Everything that Sonia Soraya wrote about the show in Vanity Fair… but mostly that we were able to create a show that takes the audience on the survivor’s emotional journey while allowing viewers to confront their own biases about what sexual abuse looks like.

If you could work on any other series on TV, what would it be?
Current show: “We Are Who We Are”
Off the air show: “The Wire”

Finish this sentence: “If you like _______, you’ll love our show.”
If you like TV that actively makes you think and examine your own core beliefs about consent, you’ll love our show.

COVID-19 has forced networks, studios and streamers to get even more clever when it comes to their mailers and virtual campaigns. Expect to see even more in the coming months as the May frenzy to debut last-minute shows, followed by the ongoing Emmy campaign, keeps the Postal Service (not to mention UPS and FedEx) busy.

Officially, there are no more mailers going to Academy members. And FYC events come with a strict $30 limit for digital goodies like food codes. But those of us in the press still get to see some of the mailers going out, and many are even meant for us. So I’ll keep you updated on what’s going out in the mail.

First up, Starz kicked off Emmy FYC season with a mailer to press and influencers that included gourmet popcorn, branded to their contenders, as well as a robe and slippers to enjoy the at-home campaign season.

Launch mailers came from Showtime’s “Couples Therapy,” which returned for Season 2 on April 18; Disney Plus’ “Big Shot,” which premiered on April 16; and the seventh and final season launch of “Younger,” the former TV Land series that moved to Paramount Plus and returned on April 15.

Getting a lot of good reactions from this one, as I sense it’s a universal feeling: The world has changed so much, and the structure of the business as we knew it has now been completely decimated. So now, who’s in charge of what? Why have so many networks been combined under single management, yet there are all these new divisions and layers with clinical-sounding names straight out of the tech business playbook?

I write:

As the industry began to change, TV’s org charts got more complicated. The networks were consumed by larger conglomerates that were more focused on Wall Street and the bottom line. That meant the domains of showy entertainment presidents with their golden guts began to shrink.

Then came the streaming revolution, followed by a frenzy of corporate restructuring — and in some cases, restructuring of previous restructuring. That’s left many in Hollywood confused about how modern programming departments work inside the conglomerates that dominate the industry. Whereas once upon a time every network was set up similarly, now each corporate giant has a different quirk about its hierarchy and reporting structure. Often, the streamlining has actually led to more layers.

“It has taken a beat,” says Sony Pictures TV president Jeff Frost. “It’s a little more confusing. The good news is that we have relationships with all these people. So it’s not like having to start from scratch in creating that relationship, but it has been confusing in terms of ‘So who do I talk to about this issue?’ And sorting that out has taken a little time and a little figuring out.”

That goes for the rep world as well. UTA partner Dan Erlij (speaking at a recent HRTS virtual open house, coincidentally) notes, “Figuring out who’s in charge of what can be a little bit challenging.”

Read more here.

More TV awards! The Banff World Media Festival has revealed the full list of nominees for its 2021 Rockie Awards International Program Competition.

In the English comedy category, contenders include FX’s “Better Things,” HBO Max’s “The Flight Attendant,” Hulu’s “The Great,” FX’s “What We Do In The Shadows,” Hulu’s “Woke” and Sky One’s “Brassic.” English-lingo drama nominees include AMC’s “Gangs of London,” HBO/BBC’s “His Dark Materials,” BBC America’s “Killing Eve,” BBC’s “Noughts + Crosses” and Bell Media’s “Transplant.”

BBC Studios leads all producers, with 28 nominations, followed by HBO, with nine. Among countries, the United States was tops with 50 nods, then United Kingdom with 47.

Read the full list here.

In Ryan Murphy‘s Netflix series “Ratched,” Sophie Okonedo plays Charlotte Wells, a patient with dissociative identity disorder. Awards HQ asked Okonedo to share her TV picks for guilty TV pleasure (can be of all time, or currently), “deep cut” (show you recommend that isn’t as well known, past or present) and “show mate” (the show that, if you were stuck on a desert island with only one DVD, you’d choose to be the most important/most influential/best TV show in your life). Here were her answers.

GUILTY PLEASURE: My guilty pleasure used to be a programme called ‘Escape to the Country’, which is a real estate programme where, each week, a presenter helps several people find a home in the countryside. For many years I was longing to move out of the city so I could really enjoy watching it with a cup of tea and biscuits. Now that I actually have moved to the countryside, I don’t watch it at all!

DEEP CUT: “My Brilliant Friend” is an Italian television series I watched in its entirety during the first lockdown. It’s set in Naples in the 1950s and charts a complicated friendship between two women who meet at primary school. It is epic, beautiful, painful and funny. There is a scene in the last episode between the two main characters, inside a meat factory where one of them is working, which made me cry so hard I had to pause the programme and gather myself before I could continue watching. Utterly heartbreaking.

SHOW MATE: “Scenes From a Marriage” is probably the only television series that I’ve watched several times. It really holds up to several viewings. It stars one of my favourite actors and inspirations, Liv Ullmann, and it is directed by the great Ingmar Bergman. There’s also a film version but I prefer the television series spread over 6 episodes which really gets under the skin of the marriage… and under the skin of the viewer.

Back in February I exclusively spoke with Television Academy President/COO Maury McIntyre about this year’s Emmy race, and he gave me the lowdown on the state of the awards, the campaigning, and the entire organization.

“Based on the responses we’re getting, it’s the biggest FYC season we will have,” McIntyre told Variety. “Clearly we won’t be having [normal in-person] events. We just don’t feel that, no matter what happens with vaccines, we’re going to be in a position to bring a whole lot of people together. But we will be having FYC season programming…that’s a feeling of normalcy coming back, even if it’s virtual.”

McIntyre also revealed that in the wake of the pandemic, the TV Academy’s membership level (which had previously grown to around 25,000) has dipped by 5,000 over the past year, likely due to pandemic-related job losses, and other effects of the recent dramatic shifts and downsizing in the industry.

For Your Consideration events returned this year — staring on March 24 — and networks and studios have the option of doing drive-in (with strict COVID protocols, such as guests not being allowed to leave their cars) or virtual events — which can be either live-streamed or pre-taped. “We were thinking maybe we’d have 100 or so, but instead we’ve had over 300 properties interested in doing events,” McIntyre said. “We were a little surprised when we got such an overwhelming response so we immediately had to relook at the calendar.”

Given the demand, the Academy will sanction four programs per day: Two at 5 p.m. and two at 7 p.m. on weekdays, and two at 2 p.m. and two at 7 p.m. on weekends. Because of the extra effort required to administer livestreams, only one event at a time can go live (the other will have to be pre-taped) — and there will be no livestreams at all on Fridays or Saturdays.

“I actually think this is freeing up a lot of our partners who might not have normally done an FYC event,” McIntyre said. “Quite honestly, these days, if you want to do a pre-recorded event, you just got to get your director, writer, showrunner and a couple of your talents on a zoom call, hit record and you’ve got an FYC event.”

Each Academy-sanctioned FYC event will require a $5,000 fee, which goes toward event administration and invites, McIntyre said. Livestreams will cost another $2,500. The Academy is also offering its Wolf Theater facilities for rent, sans audience, of course, for $17,500 if talent is in person or $7,500 if talent is being beamed in remotely. (The org will waive that $2,500 livestream fee if the theater is rented.)

Meanwhile, the Academy will allow virtual events to offer a $30 digital food credit to attendees toward the use of services like Grubhub or Door Dash. For drive-in events, the combined cost of food and any gifts cannot exceed $30. Nothing is allowed to be sent to attendees’ homes by the networks and studios.

Get the full details here.

The decision to once again merge variety talk and variety sketch into one category — the John Oliver vs. “Saturday Night Live” smackdown that was destined to take place — promised to be perhaps the most controversial aspect of this year’s Emmy competition. So much that there were rumors of talent and shows refusing to participate in this year’s Emmy contest or telecast if concerns weren’t addressed.

Ultimately, in February, the uproar convinced the Television Academy to maintain separate categories for variety talk series and variety sketch series — at least, this year.

“While the Academy remains concerned about the number of series produced and the relatively small pool of entries in the variety sketch genre, it acknowledges that the differences between variety sketch and talk programs merit separate consideration,” the org said in a statement. “As the Academy continues to engage with industry leaders and constituents, it will always endeavor to uphold the integrity of the competition and be as fair as possible.”

In its efforts to maintain that fairness, the Academy found itself in a bit of a conundrum: Despite the growth in talk, the number of sketch series has declined in recent years. Under the Academy’s “Rule of 25,” “if for two consecutive years there are less than 25 entries in an existing category, they may be combined into a related category.”

In the 2020 Emmy competition, variety talk had 24 submissions, while variety sketch had just 14. Under new rules implemented last year, categories with between 20 and 80 contenders compete with five nominees; for six, there must be at least 81 entrants. As a result, variety talk was reduced to five nominees, while variety sketch received just three ballot slots.

That’s what likely led to the decision to merge talk and sketch back together. But that announcement came late in the day on a Friday, catching many off-guard in the late night world, which hadn’t been aware that such a move might be in the works. In the end, the Academy realized it was best to handle such a change in perhaps a more diplomatic way.

Read more: TV Academy Will Keep Emmys Talk and Sketch Categories Separate This Year, Reversing Rule Change (EXCLUSIVE)

Yeah, the folks at Netflix and Apple TV Plus are going to kill me for bringing this up, but it’s hard not to notice that those shows’ big wins at the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards — the two most prominent winter awards shows with TV elements — automatically make them Emmy frontrunners.

I KNOW, I’m not supposed to use the “f” word. But “The Crown,” “The Queen’s Gambit” and “Ted Lasso” have already been early favorites to lead this year’s Emmy Awards in drama, limited series and comedy, respectively. And the Globes and SAG Awards wins for all three shows just solidified it.

The HFPA’s love for “The Crown” was expected, as the show had previously won the best drama Globe in 2017. It picked up another one this year thanks to a buzzy Season 4, as the show turned its attention to the more contemporary tale of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, as well as the battle between Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

As for “The Queen’s Gambit,” Anya Taylor-Joy beat out a competitive limited actress field at the Globes and the show itself also won in a limited series/anthology/TV movie category that featured “The Undoing,” “Small Axe,” “Unorthodox” and “Normal People.”

On the comedy side, we had gone a bit on a limb and predicted that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association would be eager to be first major awards show out of the gate to give Apple TV Plus’ “Ted Lasso” an award for best comedy. They didn’t do that — although they did award series star and co-creator Jason Sudeikis the win for comedy actor.

Meanwhile, at this year’s rather predictable (for TV) SAG Awards ceremony, “The Crown” was named best drama ensemble, while “Ted Lasso” star Sudeikis also won for best comedy male actor, and “The Queen’s Gambit’s” Taylor-Joy was named best female actor in a limited series/TV movie.

The Emmy season is long, and several contenders haven’t even debuted yet. But these are the shows to beat — and I’d argue that’s a nice place to be for all three, even if they now have targets on their backs.

Monday, April 26, 5 p.m. PT: MTV invites Television Academy National Active members to “The Real World Homecoming: New York” FYC event.  Click here to watch the event on the Television Academy’s Viewing Platform.

Monday, April 26, 7 p.m. PT: National Geographic invites Television Academy National Active members to “Impact with Gal Gadot” FYC event. Click here to watch the event.

Monday, April 26, 7 p.m. PT: HBO invites Television Academy National Active members to “Perry Mason” FYC event. Click here to watch the event.

Tuesday, April 27, 5 p.m. PT: HBO Max invites Television Academy National Active members to “Search Party” FYC event. Click here to watch the event.

Wednesday, April 28, 5 p.m. PT: OWN invites Television Academy National Active members to a virtual event and panel “Iyanla: Fix My Life” FYC event. Click here to watch the event on the Television Academy’s Viewing Platform.

Wednesday, April 28, 5 p.m. PT: HBO Max invites Television Academy National Active members to “Raised by Wolves” FYC event. Click here to watch the event.

Wednesday, April 28, 7 p.m. PT: Starz invites Television Academy National Active members to “The Girlfriend Experience” FYC event. Click here to watch the event on the Television Academy’s Viewing Platform.

Thursday, April 29, 6:30 p.m. PT: NBCUniversal invites Television Academy National Active members to “Top Chef” FYC Drive-In event. Rose Bowl Stadium.

Friday, April 30, 5 p.m. PT: Warner Bros. Television invites Television Academy National Active members to “Prodigal Son” FYC event. Click here to watch the event on the Television Academy’s Viewing Platform.

Friday, April 30, 7 p.m. PT: HBO Max invites Television Academy National Active members to “Chelsea Handler: Evolution” FYC event. Click here to watch the event.

Friday, April 30, 7 p.m. PT: Netflix invites Television Academy National Active members to “Shadow and Bone” Screening of Episode 1 “A Searing Burst of Light.” Click here to register for the RSVP Lottery.

Saturday, May 1, 7 p.m. PT: Amazon Studios invites Television Academy National Active members to a virtual event and “Beyond the Screen” launch party for “Small Axe” Followed by an Exclusive Virtual After Party with DJ Silent Addy. Click here to register for the RSVP Lottery.

Saturday, May 1, 7 p.m. PT: FX invites Television Academy National Active members to “Archer” FYC event.

Sunday, May 2, 7 p.m. PT: Amazon Studios invites Television Academy National Active members to a virtual panel “Yearly Departed” FYC event.  Click here to register for the RSVP Lottery.

Sunday, May 2, 7 p.m. PT: Amazon Studios invites Television Academy National Active members to a virtual panel “Yearly Departed” FYC event.  Click here to register for the RSVP Lottery.

Sunday, May 2, 7 p.m. PT: Netflix invites Television Academy National Active members to “Emily In Paris” FYC event. Screening of Episode 8, “Family Affair.” Click here to register for the RSVP Lottery.

Premiere dates: “The Handmaid’s Tale” (Hulu, April 28); “The Big Shot with Bethenny” (HBO Max, April 29); “Duff’s Happy Fun Bake Time” (Discovery Plus, April 29); “Let’s Be Real” (Fox, April 29); “The Mosquito Coast” (Apple TV Plys, April 30); “The Girlfriend Experience” (Starz, May 2); “Pose” (FX, May 2)