The Emmys Are Finally Fixing Its Most Terrible Rules

For awards-watchers, two elements of the annual Emmy nominations have turned glaringly ridiculous over the last few years: the tendency of acting categories to be dominated by two or three shows and the paltry makeup of the variety sketch-series race, which has only fielded two nominees of late due to a lack of eligible contenders. But both of these problems, it gives me great pleasure to report, have been addressed in this cycle’s rule changes, which was announced on Tuesday by the Television Academy.

This year’s White Lotus problem, as we’ll call it—the first season’s (great!) ensemble occupied more than half of the total limited-series supporting acting slots with eight nominees—has essentially been killed by the Academy’s decision to put an end to the “unlimited ballot.” This Peak TV–inspired system allowed voters to check off as many performers and series as they wanted in each category. Although designed to help members sift through an ever-expanding television landscape, it had the opposite effect when it came down to the actual nominations, as fewer shows racked up huge totals, sometimes with entire casts being recognized. (This year’s limited supporting-actress race consisted entirely of stars from White Lotus and Dopesick, the two overall favorites, despite the rich range of work on many other series.)

Now voters will be able to check off only as many contenders as will ultimately be nominated, depending on the amount of folks submitted for consideration (typically five to eight actors per field). This means worthy performances in under-the-radar shows will have more of a fighting chance. It also means that players from the same program will now face the uniquely unfair issue of vote-splitting, a relatively normal awards-season complaint.

As for the variety shakeup, the Television Academy is less to blame for struggling to react to the rapidly contracting nature of the field. (We’re losing James Corden and Trevor Noah this season, with no news on whether they’ll be replaced soon if at all. Samantha Bee and Desus & Mero are already gone.) But still, having A Black Lady Sketch Show lose to Saturday Night Live every year, while worthy players like Ziwe had no shot at even nominations, was getting tiresome. 

The Academy will try fixing this by dividing variety series into categories of “scripted” and “talk,” instead of “sketch” and “talk.” The scripted category will bring folks like John Oliver, who helm variety series that do not run on interviews, into the old sketch tent. The broadened talk category, meanwhile, will continue to feature most broadcast late-night hosts, and also welcome in streaming figures like Jon Stewart and David Letterman, who host interview-centric programs.

It’s not likely that this will make a huge difference in terms of how many scripted variety series will get nominated—the dearth of overall submissions can’t be solved by the Television Academy—but it’s something. So instead of the desperate predictability of Oliver and Saturday Night Live winning every year, we get to watch them go up against each other. And, by default, a new queen or (sadly, far more likely) king of late-night can finally be crowned.

The Television Academy has all of its rule changes for the 2023 Emmys listed on its website.