Emmy Awards Make Major Rule Change for Primetime and Daytime Shows

As television habits continue to change, the Television Academy and National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced a major change to the Emmy Awards on Tuesday. From now on, the two organizations will organize their awards only by genre, instead of based on time slot. It's an acknowledgment that people now watch shows at any time of day during the streaming era.

NATAS is the body that awards the Daytime Emmys, which honors soap operas, talk shows, and other daytime programs, while the Television Academy awards the Primetime Emmys. Both organizations hope that the move will help cut down on overlap and clarify which shows qualify for each ceremony. Scripted comedies and dramas will enter the Television Academy's national competition, no matter when they air. This has become an issue with streaming platforms that release shows at all times of the day.

There will be some exceptions. Shows made for audiences 15 years old and younger will still only compete in NATAS' recently-established Children's & Family Emmy Awards. There will still be a Daytime Drama category, defining the qualifying shows as "any multi-camera, weekday daily serial, spin-off or reboot." This means Days of Our Lives won't suddenly be competing with Succession for the Outstanding Drama Series Primetime Emmy.

All programming usually considered for the Daytime Limited Drama categories will now compete in the Primetime limited categories. Talk shows will still be honored in both competitions, but separated by categories that reflect the differences between daytime and late-night shows. However, as Variety points out, if a daytime talk show like The Ellen DeGeneres Show could make a case for going up against The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon or The Late Show with Stephen Colbert at the Primetime Emmys, it could be accepted.

"We're no longer looking at the clock to decide what's daytime, and what's primetime," NATAS president/CEO Adam Sharp told Variety Tuesday. "That just no longer makes sense, in the way consumers currently watch TV. I think this realignment reflects that and allows us to have more clarity between the two competitions. I think it also makes it a lot easier for creators in our community who were getting increasingly confused – 'I produce a show for a streaming platform, that I intend to be consumed at all different times. So where does that put me?'"

NATAS has also eliminated the Morning Show and Spanish-Language Morning Show categories, so those programs will now be eligible for NATAS' News & Documentary Emmys or the Daytime competition's Talk Show categories. Both NATAS and the TV Academy also held off on making changes to the game show and instructional/DIY categories for 2022.

Despite all these changes, the two organizations will remain separate. The Daytime Emmys will still air in June and the Primetime Emmys will air in September to kick off the new TV season.

"The realignment of these Emmy competitions represents the most significant collaboration between the Television Academy and NATAS since the two became separate entities in 1977," TV Academy President and COO Maury McIntyre said in a statement. "We're proud to be responsive to the needs of the creative community and the evolution of our industry, ensuring the Emmy Award remains the preeminent mark of excellence across all genres of television."