Is television getting less funny?
It’s hard to make that argument, given the black humor that runs through even drama series like “Succession,” “The White Lotus” and “Bad Sisters.” But a look at this year’s Emmy ballots, which were released on Thursday at the start of the 12-day voting period for nominations, reveals a strong trend: Comedy categories across the ballot will have fewer nominees than those categories did last year.
And for competitors in the Emmys’ comedy categories, that’s no laughing matter.
The grim statistics: The Emmy ballots contain 11 categories devoted entirely to comedy. One of those, Outstanding Comedy Series, is set at a flat eight nominees under Emmy rules. In the other 10 comedy categories, as in most Emmy categories, the number of nominees is determined by how many shows or individuals qualified: five nominees if it’s between 20 and 80, six if it’s 81 to 160, seven if it’s 161 to 240 and eight if it’s more than 240.
In seven of those 10 comedy categories, there will be fewer nominees this year than last. Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and Lead Actress in a Comedy Series both dropped below 80 entries and will be cut from six to five nominees; the two supporting categories fell below 240 and will drop from eight to seven nominees. Comedy directing and comedy writing will both fall from seven to six nominees, and Casting for a Comedy Series from six to five.
In the drama categories, by contrast, the only category in danger of dropping in size is Guest Actress in a Drama Series, which fell from 83 qualifying performances last year (6 nominees) to 80 this year (five nominees). But the number of contenders in the Guest Actor in a Drama Series increased from 94 last year to 102 this year, and Emmy rules say that gender-divided categories should have parity in the number of nominees, which will keep the guest actress category at six.
Overall, more than half the categories that are shrinking in size this year are specifically devoted to comedy – and others, including Character Voice-Over Performance and Sound Editing and Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half Hour) and Animation, are dominated by comedic shows.
Other categories that are slated to shrink include Outstanding Reality Competition Program and Host for a Reality or Reality Competition Program, both of which are dropping from six nomination slots to five, as well as Main Title Design, Music Supervision and Original Music and Lyrics.
Only a handful of categories are in line to grow in size, including Variety Special (Pre-Recorded), Scripted Variety Series (which has different qualifying requirements this year) and Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.
Overall, more than half the Emmys’ 120 categories had fewer entries than they did last year, while only 30 had more entries. But in most cases, the change in the number of entries was not enough to trigger a change in the number of nominees.
(Note: While the Emmy rules set the number of nominees by the number of contenders, several categories each year will end up with more or fewer nominees because of ties.)
The result of this year’s submissions will make some of the comedy races even more competitive than they already were. In Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, for example, the presumed frontrunners are bill Hader from “Barry,” Jason Sudeikis from “Ted Lasso,” Jeremy Allen White from “The Bear” and both Steve Martin and Martin Short from “Only Murders in the Building” – but with only five nominees, that leaves out Jason Segel from “Shrinking,” Nicholas Hoult from “The Great,” Donald Glover from “Atlanta” and many others. With only five available slots, will voters use 40% of their ballots on “Only Murders,” or will they pick one of the Martins and potentially penalize both of them?
In the comedy actress category, it has suddenly gotten a lot harder for everyone from Elle Fanning (“The Great”) to Bridget Everett (“Somebody Somewhere”) to Christina Appelgate and Linda Cardellini (“Dead to Me”) to break into a field that also includes Quinta Brunson (“Abbott Elementary”), Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), Selena Gomez (“Only Murders”), Jenna Ortega (“Wednesday”) and Natasha Lyonne (“Poker Face”).
It’s like that throughout the comedy categories now: fewer entries, not enough spots. Not so funny, is it?
