UPDATE 4:35 PM: This just in from the Academy.... While the Board has formally approved the intent to make the change in 2010, it has given the music branch time to come back with its final decision. Pending approval from the music branch, this rule change will become official in next year’s 2011 Primetime Emmy competition.
The TV Academy has announced a bevy of rules changes for this year's Emmys -- including a consolidation in the animation categories.
Starting this year, there'll no longer be separate Emmy categories for half-hour and hourlong (or longer) animated series. This means shows such as "The Simpsons" will now go head-to-head with the likes of "Star Wars: Clone Wars."
Also, in a crushing blow to theme song geeks, the Academy is getting rid of the main title theme category. Somewhere, Danny Elfman is pissed.
More on these changes later today, but here's a summary of what's going on, directly from the Academy:
AREA AWARDS
Raise the bar from 2/3 approval to 9/10 approval in order to decrease the number of multiple winners in the "more than one" option for area awards. The Board of Governors felt this would curb awards proliferation and heighten the standards for selecting area awards honorees.
BLUE RIBBON PANELISTS
Restrict all series program BRP panelists to no more than two straight years judging the same category. This will allow a greater variety of members to take part in the vote for both Outstanding Comedy and Drama Series.
"HANGING EPISODES" ELIGIBILITY CLARIFICATION
If an ongoing series has enough episodes in the current eligibility year to qualify as a series and has one or more episodes that are part of the series season that fall into the subsequent eligibility year, the "hanging episodes" that are in a contiguous rollout on the same distribution platform join in eligibility the already-qualified-as-eligible episodes of the series.
For example, a comedy series that regularly airs on a weekly basis that has six episodes in the 2010 eligibility year and has two more episodes of its series season airing subsequently and on the same platform in the 2011 eligibility year would enter all eight episodes in 2010 eligibility. On the other hand, a comedy series that has two episodes in the 2010 eligibility year and six more episodes airing subsequently on the same platform in the 2011 eligibility year would enter the eight episodes only in 2011. They would not be allowed to "sneak" the six episodes, e.g., post them on the internet or air them in an obscure time slot, in order to qualify the series in 2010.
2% RULE
The "2% Rule" considers a 2% or less gap between nomination candidates to be a dead heat and includes both in nomination, e.g., in a category where the ideal number of nominations is 5 and the 5th and 6th top vote-getters are within 2% of each other, both are included in nomination. This rule does not apply to categories where the ideal number of nominations is six.
