ABC’s Modern Family and Showtime’s Homeland were the big winners for Sunday night’s Emmy Awards broadcast on ABC. An Emmy win by Jon Cryer, star of Two and a Half Men” on CBS, for best actor in a comedy, surprised even him.
Actual TV fan Jimmy Kimmel, who also hosts a late-night talk show, will preside over ABC’s telecast of the Emmy Awards Sunday night.
Why ‘Mad Men’ May Not Win An Emmy
It’s facing its toughest competition ever on Sunday in Showtime’s Homeland and PBS’s Downton Abbey. Matt Roush, senior TV critic at TV Guide, talks about whether Men will win, why Modern Family is a lock for its third straight best comedy, and which categories are still too close to call.
Claire Danes, Emily Van Camp, Zooey Deschanel, Kerry Washington, Tina Fey, Jon Cryer and winners Jeremy Davies and Martha Plimpton are among the latest who will take to the stage at Sunday’s primetime event.
AMC’s Mad Men earned a leading 17 Emmy nominations this morning. The FX miniseries American Horror Story, a nightmarish saga about a haunted house, received a matching 17 awards, including an acting nod for star Connie Britton.
While awards are beloved Hollywood ego-boosters, it’s serious business when a studio (or, less often, network) invests in mailers, online and newspaper and magazine ads, digital billboards and more. And the pushes for glory often take a funny (to some) approach.
Exclusives
Don Mischer will serve as executive producer of the 64th annual telecast slotted for Sept. 23, 2012 on ABC.
The ABC sitcom won best comedy series, supporting acting Emmys for TV parents Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell and best writing and direction. AMC’s Mad Men won the best drama series award and Kyle Chandler was the surprise best actor winner from NBC’s Friday Night Lights. Alec Baldwin was to be part of an opening video for Sunday night’s ceremony airing on News Corp.-owned Fox. But he tweeted before the awards that the network had killed his joke about the hacking scandal in Britain involving the now-closed News of the World tabloid.
Award-show fatigue is a common ailment these days, but in the case of Sunday’s Emmys on Fox, there are enough unknowns to make a tune-in worthwhile. Despite the perennial blizzard of pre-Emmy media coverage, this year’s Jane Lynch-hosted, Mark Burnett-produced ceremony still promises plenty of moments of intrigue, interest and surprise.
If there are any sure bets at this year’s Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, they are Modern Family again being crowned TV’s best comedy series and Kate Winslet winning for her role in Mildred Pierce. Most everything else is up for grabs at the TV industry’s highest honors in what awards watchers call one of the closest Emmys in years.
AMC’s critical fave received 19 Emmy nominations Thursday and has a chance to repeat for a fourth time as TV’s best drama. Stars Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss are up for lead acting honors. ABC’s Modern Family, last year’s top comedy series, was the most-nominated sitcom with 17 bids.
For the first time, miniseries and TV movies will go head to head. The academy says it levels the playing field, but producers aren’t convinced.
Talking Emmys With Outgoing ATAS CEO
When he leaves his post as chairman and CEO of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences following a pair of two-year terms at the helm, John Shaffner goes out on a high. The art director helped to forge a new eight-year Emmy telecast deal with the four broadcast networks that brings a license fee of at least $8.25 million annually and $66 million over the course of the pact. Shaffner talks about why it took nearly nine months to get the agreement finalized, where the Emmys go from here and why the Emmycast’s lukewarm ratings don’t trouble him.
After protracted negotiations, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ board of governors approved the deal Wednesday night with ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC.
The TV academy faces a production crunch in preparing for this year’s show, which is less than five months away. There is still no broadcaster set to air the live telecast Sept. 18 from the Nokia Theatre at L.A. Live. The previous eight-year contract ran out after the show last August, and negotiations have sputtered along ever since.
The Primetime Emmy Awards will continue to air on the four major broadcast networks with a new deal between the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox . The new pact, expected to close in about two weeks, is said to mirror tne TV Academy’s most recent agreement with the four networks.
After several unsuccessful attempts in the past, the Primetime Emmy Awards categories of outstanding miniseries and outstanding made for TV movie categories will merge this year.
