Ray Richmond: The Emmys could learn something from the Astras – seriously

I’ve been covering the Emmy Awards since the early 1980s, which admitted makes me something of a fossil. It’s a little bit like hearing my grandparents talking about paying a nickel to go to the movies in the early 1900s. Yes, when I started covering the Emmys, there were just ABC, NBC and CBS and a (very) little PBS. There wasn’t even a Fox yet. If you were on HBO, Showtime or TNT, you were out of luck. You had to compete for something called the CableACE Awards, which stood for “Cable Awards for Cable Excellence Awards.” Not too redundant, huh? HBO was winning everything at the CableACEs every year, so there had ceased to be a point to their ongoing existence.

Cable and syndicated programming finally gained overdue admittance to the Emmy party in 1988. And it would be 20 more years before streaming/broadband shows received the greenlight to compete for Emmy trophies starting in 2008. Those two events obviously changed the game significantly. But historically, in general, the academy usually only moves to alter things when it’s a bit too late. I still remember the furor in the early 1990s when “The Simpsons” tried to submit for live-action comedy series but was thwarted and forced to compete solely in animation. That rule wasn’t changed until 1993.

So while I’m looking forward to seeing the nominations when they come out on July 17 (next Wednesday), there’s also a part of me that wishes the academy was more open to altering its Emmy formula more significantly than just the usual minor tinkering. I’d love to see them shake things up in a bolder way, like figuring out a way to add a few dramedy categories after decades of discussion. Everyone complains about the fact that “The Bear” is entered in comedy, and trust me that it will wind up with more bids than any other series next week. But in its second season, it wasn’t any closer to being an actual comedy than it was in its first. (Interestingly, that changes radically in Season 3 when Matty Matheson and Ricky Staffieri consistently provide real comic relief inside the show’s pulsating anxiety.)

But it was while perusing the gargantuan list of nominees for the divertingly minor Astra TV Awards this past week (courtesy of the Hollywood Creative Alliance) that I was presented with a bit of a brainstorm.

Right now, as we’ll soon see, there is no differentiation with the Emmy nominations in terms of where the shows or films originate. Everything is just tossed into the same pot. Shows with radically different production rules and limitations compete against one another. The regulations in terms of content, language and visuals vary wildly depending on where and for whom they’re produced. And the Astras recognize this. They’re unique in separating broadcast, cable and streaming into their own stand-alone categories.

For example, the Astras feature competition for Best Broadcast Network Comedy Series (including ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” and “The Connors” and CBS’s “Ghosts” and “Young Sheldon”), Best Cable Comedy Series (featuring HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “The Righteous Gemstones” and FX’s “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “What We Do in the Shadows”) and Best Streaming Comedy Series (matching Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building,” “The Bear” and “Reservation Dogs” and Netflix’s “Girls5eva” and “The Gentlemen”).

I love this idea for a number of reasons, but mostly it’s a much purer and more just face-to-face contest. Now, you might say that cable and streaming differ only in their distribution method, but I beg to disagree. There is in general a more freewheeling style to streaming shows that render them somewhat more genre-fluid for awards purposes. The same is true of drama series, where broadcast (“Grey’s Anatomy” and “Will Trent” on ABC, “The Equalizer” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” on NBC) is kept separate from cable (“Billions” and “The Curse” on Showtime, “The Gilded Age” and “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” on HBO) and streaming (“3 Body Problem” and “The Crown” on Netflix, “Fallout” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” on Prime Video).

My take is that this set-up evens out the playing field in a rather brilliant way. It also opens things up for far more worthy shows and individuals to garner attention. It’s win-win straight down the line. Why couldn’t the Emmys do something similar and really bust things out by markedly shaking up their formula in a similar fashion? It would make just all kinds of sense from my perspective, so much that the academy will probably never consider it. But it would surely put the Emmys smack-dab in the middle of where television has traveled over the past couple of decades and prove incredibly forward-thinking.

Anyway, I’ll still be excited on Emmy nomination morning because I always am. But I’d nonetheless love to see something that gives a nod to where we are now rather than producing more of pretty much the same competitive dynamic, year after year.

PREDICT the 2024 Emmy nominees through July 17

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