It’s simple: If you’re handing out 100 awards, they won’t all fit on your TV show.
And for organizations like the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, that can ruffle all kinds of feathers.
When 2010 Primetime Emmy nominations were announced in June, nominees were named in 98 separate categories. When the Emmys are handed out on Aug. 29, only 27 of those – less than a third – will be handed out.
The other 71 awards will have been dispensed eight days earlier at the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy show, which isn’t televised until several days after it takes place.
"It's frustrating, and we wish we could give out more awards on the primetime show," Alan Perris, the COO of the Television Academy, told theWrap. "But we just can't shove any more awards in there. It's chock full."
And it’s even worse at the Grammy Awards, which hands out statuettes in more than 100 categories -- but presents only about a dozen of those categories on the performance-heavy show.
“It’s never an easy decision,” Neil Portnow, the president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, told theWrap, “and we certainly do hear from a lot of folks advocating for their own particular area.”
The list of nominees whose Emmy categories will be presented on the Creative Arts show includes Neil Patrick Harris, Jon Hamm, Beau Bridges, Ted Danson, John Lithgow, Christine Baranski, Tina Fey, Jane Lynch, Sissy Spacek and Ann-Margret -- all in the Guest Actor or Actress categories.
Hamm, Fey and Lynch are also nominated in primetime-show categories. Then there's Anne Hathaway (Outstanding Voice-Over Performance), Jeff Probst, Ryan Seacrest and Heidi Klum (Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program) and Oscar-winners Michael Giacchino (Outstanding Music Composition for a Series) and Randy Newman (Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics).
Even the president of the Academy, John Schaffner, has been shunted to the CAE as a nominee in two art direction categories.
And the woman of the year, Betty White, is nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her turn hosting “Saturday Night Live” – again, a Creative Arts Emmy category.
The Emmy category squeeze has already caused a few brouhahas. Deon Cole, a writer on Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight Show,” whose nominations were among the most newsworthy of the year, tweeted his displeasure with the Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Series category being left off the primetime telecast: "Someone with power has kicked us in the nuts again," he wrote.
Later he alluded to conspiracies involving NBC (which is televising the ceremony, and which gave “The Tonight Show” back to Jay Leno), then stopped complaining with this tweet: “for those that know, my tweets are being watched and read by greater powers so if i seem lame on here forgive me.”
Meanwhile, some involved in the category of Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program were disgruntled to find they’d been dropped from the primetime telecast after being there the past two years (and after its nominees had actually hosted the 2008 Emmys, right).
