Emmy Nominations Analysis: The Power of Being Seen by the Actors Branch

That The Pitt and Hacks led Wednesday’s Emmy Awards nominations, with 25 for the former and a comedy-series record 24 for the latter, was not surprising at all. In fact, I would have been stunned if there was any other headline than that one. Both of these shows are highly admired, The Pitt in only its second season surpassing its nomination totals from its winning first season by nearly doubling them, and Hacks roaring in with a final season that also managed to be its best.

Related to this dominance, it’s worth noting that these shows are driven by the actors branch, which is the largest branch of the Television Academy. The actors branch votes on the acting categories, and it’s clear that they’re watching and appreciating the work on these shows. For The Pitt, 13 actors represent more than half of the drama series’ haul of 25, and 10 actors account for the lion’s share of Hacks’ impressive new record.

The moral here for performers is book a spot on a series like these and an Emmy nomination probably has a good chance of coming right along with your residuals. The sensational series accounts for a whopping five of seven Guest Actress in a Comedy Series nominations alone. The Pitt has five nominees across Guest Actor/Actress and seven across Supporting Actor/Actress in Drama Series.

When analyzing the nominations, it becomes clear that getting noticed by the actors branch is key to success. A first-season series manages to connect bigly, such as Apple’s breakouts Widow’s Bay with four acting noms, Pluribus with five, and Margo’s Got Money Troubles with three, running up their overall totals. Even Apple’s continually rising Shrinking, another of the streamer’s three Best Comedy Series nominees in a year without Ted Lasso or The Studio, can thank the actors branch for watching and giving it six of its new personal best score of nine nominations.

Speaking of Apple, even though it comes in behind leader HBO and Netflix in overall totals, it had its best year with a variety of shows and clearly knows how to program them to get maximum Emmy exposure if you look at what the late-breaking Widow’s Bay (19 total noms), Pluribus (18), and Margo’s (eight) managed to do — not to mention the forward momentum of Shrinking, a show that was everywhere on the campaign trail this season.

Even the terrific second season of Your Friends and Neighbors managed to shock pundits (who dismissed it) by nabbing a single nomination, but a big one for Best Drama Series (when was the last time a Drama series nominee had just that single nomination and nothing else?). In the program categories everyone votes, and Friends and Neighbors’ nomination signifies that the series, which also richly deserved but didn’t get acting nominations for Jon Hamm and a supporting cast including a brilliant James Marsden, is gaining momentum and getting noticed among the overall Television Academy voters.

Conversely, Paramount+, which this year did a wide-ranging and spirited campaign for its Taylor Sheridan universe of shows including the worthy Landman and The Madison, got only a single stunt nomination, for Tulsa King. Is it David Ellison’s Paramount voters don’t like these days? Is it Sheridan the Academy just doesn’t like? Or is it that despite the overwhelming popularity of his superbly produced shows, they just don’t translate to awards even with the first-rate list of actors doing great work in them? My guess is the actors branch just isn’t bothering to watch.

With the Emmys, you are either in or you’re out. This year, with four personal nominations for acting, directing, and producing, Jason Bateman is really in. Colman Domingo, Steve Carell, Martin Short, Riz Ahmed, Jamie Lee Curtis, Billy Crudup, Zendaya, and a handful of others always seem to be nominate-able even if their series aren’t. Yes, Short again became the only acting nominee from Only Murders in the Building, but he also managed a game show host nod for the little-seen Match Game, and the Lawrence Kasdan documentary on him also scored key nominations.

By the way, it is so interesting to see the great divide between the Oscars and the Emmys when it comes to documentaries. A docu with any connection to show business or the industry just can’t get arrested at the Oscars, no matter how good they are. But the opposite is always true at the Emmys, which just nominated docs on John Candy, Martin Short, Jayne Mansfield, and Mel Brooks to simply dominate the Documentary or Non Fiction Special category.

Familiar names like those count for a lot with the Emmys. The Outstanding Limited or Anthology series is designed to be the one major category promising new blood, not the same thing season after season as Comedy and Drama and other categories often do. Well, Beef, which won eight Emmys and dominated the space in 2023, is back this year to lead the pack with 16 nominations for its second edition. Again, name recognition gets voters to watch.

I still am happy that some new blood like those Apple shows made the cut. It keeps it interesting, even though if you are going to bet on the outcome come September 14, the clear frontrunners may well be the aforementioned Pitt, Hacks, and Beef.

It turns out that the biggest surprise about this year’s Emmys, at least for me, was actually revealed yesterday when it was announced that Mariska Hargitay will be hosting the ceremony for NBC, a first for a non-comedian since Angela Lansbury did it in 1993. Since Hargitay has never hosted anything before it was not the choice I was expecting, and it is a refreshing choice. Congrats to her on this, as well as two Emmy nominations for directing and producing her moving docu on her mother, My Mom Jayne.

The Primetime Emmys air on September 14 on NBC. The Creative Arts Emmys will take place September 5-6 all at the Peacock Theater, the future home of the Oscars.