Emmys: Broadcast TV Airs Its Own Funeral As Netflix, HBO, Amazon and FX Dominate (hollywoodreporter.com)

At the 70th Emmy Awards, broadcast TV was almost shut out as Netflix and HBO battled each other. The Hollywood Reporter: This year, longtime Emmy nominations leader HBO was out-nominated by Netflix. Netflix then won the most Emmys on the main telecast, with seven noms to HBO's six. But earlier, HBO won one more award than Netflix at the Creative Arts Awards ceremonies, 17 to 16. So by the time the curtain came down on the 70th Emmy Awards, technically -- and sort of poetically -- Netflix and HBO had fought to a draw. Almost all of the major content providers left with several wins to celebrate.

[...] All in all, it was a terrible night for broadcast networks -- even as NBC aired the show and two stars of the network, Saturday Night Live's Michael Che and Colin Jost, hosted. SNL won the variety sketch award for the second year in a row, and ABC's The Oscars won for best direction of a variety show (that award's winner, Glenn Weiss, stole the night with his on-stage marriage proposal), but other than that, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox and PBS had nothing -- nothing -- to show for their work of the past year. The times have certainly changed.

Comments

Emmy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that like a Grammy?

Or Oscar or something?

To get those awards means you do something PC like, have an episode where the protagonist rescues a transgender Jewish puppy of color from the white guys who want to use it for cosmetic testing or something.

Just say'in. The movie "Crash" was such a Liberal trigger that as a liberal myself, I was like, "Oh Come on! Can you be anymore PC triggerish!!"

But it won awards.

Re:Emmy?

[jellomizer]

Sometimes.
In general I like the diversity in the shows which is happening now. For the most part these groups are in the story organically and are playing real people and not stereotypes.

However they are some shows (which are happening much less now) that just try to hit you over the head with it.

Re:Emmy?

[rtb61]

But guess who won all the video advertisement awards, neither Netflix nor HBO got a look in, nyah, nyah. You just know that is echoing through the free to airs empty heads.

Silly Awards Shows

[DatbeDank]

It's just LA trying to pretend that what goes on there is important.

Almost as silly as network TV thinking it has a future.

Re:Silly Awards Shows

[Anonymous Coward]

Textbook example of an anachronism.

Who actually watches this?

[pgmrdlm]

I never did. Even when there was nothing else on t.v., and I am old enough to remember just 6 channels. Choice between the Emmy's and watching a spider crawl along the wall. I have always chosen the spider over the Emmy's, or what ever awards show.
Seriously, other then people hooked on T.V..(I am not), who watches this shit.

Re:Who actually watches this?

[MpVpRb]

My wife makes me watch it. I have no idea why

Re:Who actually watches this?

[Anonymous Coward]

To torture you for forgetting your anniversary.

Re:Who actually watches this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? She says "no, you can't go anywhere, you must sit down here and watch this"? I'd believe she says "I'm watching this on this TV", but if she doesn't allow you to leave, then I believe you may be in an abusive relationship.

Re:Who actually watches this?

[cayenne8]

I am old enough to remember just 6 channels.

Young whipper snapper.....

I remember when there were only 3 channels on the air on TV.

6? Luxury.....of course, we had it tough.....

Re:Who actually watches this?

[ruddk]

I can't imagine that I would be bored enough to watch that, even a nap would be more useful.

Re:Who actually watches this?

[pgmrdlm]

My condolences. Thankfully, my Girl Friend isn't into watching crap like this.

Re:Who actually watches this?

[R3d M3rcury]

You had 3?! We only had two!

Seriously, growing up we had a CBS affiliate and an ABC affiliate. Never saw any of the NBC shows in the 1970s/1980s. I don't think I missed much, though...

Re:Who actually watches this?

[Scarletdown]

From what I can recall back in the 70s before we had cable TV, it was ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS; so four channels for us.

I do recall getting one or two other odd VHF channels from Boise or Portland; but that could have been post cable era (aka 80s and beyond.)

That said, I hated the TBS affiliate in the 80s for keeping all their programming solely on Eastern Time, which meant I had to be up at 0500 on Saturday mornings if I wanted to catch Starcade.

Re:Who actually watches this?

[reboot246]

The number of people who watch the Emmys is going down every year. This year's show had the lowest viewership in history, 10.2 million viewers out of a population of over 300 million. So, when you ask who watches this shit, the answer is practically nobody.

I'm a critic of

[Presence Eternal]

Awards shows where awards shows win awards.

Online cost of risk is much lower.

[jellomizer]

With higher risk, there is a chance for higher reward.
Broadcast companies have a high cost for a show failure.
1. The cost to make the show.
2. The opportunity cost of having people watch something else on that channel instead.
3. While the show is failing they will still normally need to broadcast for a few more weeks.

These cost prevents them from straying from the normal formula of what to show.
While sacrificing a new hit by reducing a huge flop.

Online companies, has the cost to make the show, but after it is made and posted to the servers it is easy money.
The people who like the show can watch it anytime. So even if it gritty they can watch it prime time, and not off hours where such people may be already asleep because they have to be at work in the morning. If people don't like it they won't watch it, and Streaming companies have real time reviews and can use such to fix the show, or cancel it, with the rest of the season available (and perhaps just wrap it up)

Re:Online cost of risk is much lower.

[MightyMartian]

The funny thing is that the subscription model long predates Netflix's and Amazon's forays into original programming. HBO has been around for nearly fifty years as a premium service, and has done fairly well with it, enough that is able to produce a good deal of original programming, which it in turn is either now directly streaming online or has sold in certain national markets to other streaming services. What we're seeing here is simply a repeat of what happened to the music industry 15 years ago, where a total lack of foresight, despite the notion of directly delivering the media product via a subscription service being floated for a long time leading to the industry suddenly going 'WTF!" And as the unholy alliance between the cable companies and the major networks continues to fray (after all, what the hell does a cable company care whether the TV show being sent across its network is via TV signal or IP packets), watch the traditional studio model collapse completely.

Re:Online cost of risk is much lower.

[drinkypoo]

The funny thing is that the subscription model long predates Netflix's and Amazon's forays into original programming. HBO has been around for nearly fifty years as a premium service, and has done fairly well with it,

You left out the interesting part of this history, though. HBO started out by showing other people's content, then parlayed that into enough money to make their own content. This led to them becoming a massive player. Netflix dominated on the same basis, only on the internet instead of cable...

Re:Online cost of risk is much lower.

[MightyMartian]

Yes, it's an important point. Once again the American studio system saw an opportunity with HBO, but didn't see the inherent threat that that implied. So long as the network-air/network-cable cabals reigned supreme, HBO was still reliant on either pushing over the cable companies or via satellite (which is how I first saw HBO on a friend's satellite system in the 1980s). I have to believe that Netflix looked at HBO's successes and shortcomings and realized that the Internet afforded the opportunity to avoid having to bother with the traditional TV hegemony entirely. Of course now it's in a race with other players as the likes of Disney begin pushing towards their own streaming services, but that's fine, providing the big ISPs aren't allowed to start picking winners.

Lack of Awards Much

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know what publication received no Pulitzer's for their journalism and no Webby's for their online articles last year: The Hollywood Reporter.

Who's funeral is it now, suckers!

Let's get meta up in this bitch

[Anonymous Coward]

We need an award show that ranks other award shows.

Best Host at an Awards Show
Best Set Design...
Best Music...
Reddest Carpet

Up Next, "The Hand Cranked Car Awards!"

[pushf popf]

I have a TV antenna.

Just for grins I switched to broadcast TV a few weeks ago. For about 30 seconds.

Someone should put them out of my misery.

Too Political.

[Zorro]

All Trump all the time. That is why no one watches.

Did it include a snobby Meryl Streep?

[ruddk]

Did it include a snobby Meryl Streep bitching about how everyone outside Hollywood sucks? :D

Death, taxes and the Emmy's

[fahrbot-bot]

From The Best and Worst Moments of the 2018 Emmys:

“Our network NBC has the most nominations of any broadcast network,” Mr. Che said. “Which is kind of like being the sexiest person on life support.”

Re:Go woke, go broke.

[0xdeadbeef]

Instead it's a bunch of self-important celebrities whining that they don't like the President.

In other words, no different than the current president was two years ago.

At least their conspiracy theory is real, and its evidence is sending people to jail.

Re:Go woke, go broke.

[Oswald McWeany]

Nobody wants to watch TV/movie/music award shows anymore because they no longer focus on TV/movies/music. Instead it's a bunch of self-important celebrities whining that they don't like the President.

No, no one wants to watch them because they're boring... I couldn't care less what their opinion of the President is, even if I agree with it.

I still watch OTA TV

[Anonymous Coward]

exclusively. Why pay for drivel when I can get it for free?

Re:Trump is a national tragedy, it's appropriate

[HornWumpus]

You can recognize Drinkypoo's incoherent rants. Not all of it is him, just most.

When Jesus addicts get their way

[hyades1]

There's a way to ease this problem, though perhaps not eradicate it completely. The viewing public has proved definitively it wants programming which includes some NSFW content. I don't mean flat-out pornography (that's an argument for another time and place). I mean characters that curse and have sex occasionally without paying some price for their "sins", perhaps some nudity, realistic depictions of adult relationships...all that and more. The broadcast networks have been shut out of that incredibly huge market thanks to the squawking of religious nutbars who believe a character saying "fuck" at 11 pm on a talk show somehow endangers the moral well-being of the nation.

If the networks were allowed to air shows like "Breaking Bad", "Jessica Jones" or "Game of Thrones", I doubt very much whether they'd be getting out-competed by Netflix, HBO and Amazon. After all, a lot of broadcast channels are available for no more than the cost of an antenna (analog or digital). Instead, their licenses depend on adhering to so-called "community standards" that haven't really existed for decades. So you can't get shows like this at all, and even occasional expletives on shows like the Tonight Show are bleeped. So people look elsewhere for entertainment.

And guess who's created that situation. It's the same pack of self-righteous assholes who can't resist sticking their long, pointy noses into my life and telling me what a worthless sinner I am while they simultaneously excuse ugly, evil behaviour by any politician, police force or religious organization that promises to advance their political and cultural objectives.

Re:When Jesus addicts get their way

[hyades1]

There's a dog prick needing to be sucked...oops, never mind. I see you're already on it!

Re:When Jesus addicts get their way

[hyades1]

Didn't your mother teach you not to talk with your mouth full?

Re:When Jesus addicts get their way

[Anonymous Coward]

Worth remembering that the pilgrims were "a pack of self-righteous assholes who can't resist sticking their long, pointy noses into" people’s lives. Your country is founded on them. Fleeing across the ocean to avoid religious tolerance and understanding.

Re:When Jesus addicts get their way

[The Faywood Assassin]

I don't get who you are dissing. The OP? Or the intolerant religious assholes?

Re:When Jesus addicts get their way

[The Faywood Assassin]

This makes a lot of sense. Well thought out argument.

Re:When Jesus addicts get their way

[hyades1]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Re: Go woke, go broke.

[houghi]

You make it sound as if thid is a recent evolution. This has been going on since Roman times. At least.

Captive Audience

[mentil]

The only people who watch broadcast nowadays are those who don't have cable or satellite. Or want to watch the local news. Viewership is really high on broadcast channels, relatively, but their content is low-effort crap. I haven't watched a broadcast show since Lost ended. They seem to be targeting people who can't afford cable or satellite, and thus know they can produce the cheapest content possible and don't need to compete with those services. Once the switch to ATSC 3.0 happens, and a new round of converter boxes are required (there's no planned subsidy for them, unlike the last time), lots of people are just going to drop broadcast entirely.

Another way of looking at it is that broadcast networks are like the Hallmark Channel: they're stuck in a morass of vapid family-friendly content, and can't do anything controversial, which is where all the awards are going.

Re:Captive Audience

[AmiMoJo]

I know a guy who destroyed his TV when he saw the ending to Lost. Not intentionally, he just threw something at it in a rage, but it made him realize he didn't want to buy another.

makes sense

[roc97007]

Content creators have gotten the message that the broadcast networks apparently haven't figured out yet, and have abandoned ship for on-demand services. We've seen this coming for a very long time.

The Emmys are not about television any more

[Ol Olsoc]

The Emmy's are about death to the Patriarchy. https://www.vanityfair.com/hol... If you do not agree, you are a sexist member of the patriarchy. Wany to argue about it? Take it up with Joanna Robinson, who tells us what the Emmy's are now.

Personally,, just between us chickens, I would like to see an awards show that is not based on the white hot hatred of men. One based on a television show being entertaining. One not based on Lecturing us with no humor at all, merely hate. One where every female winner is not announced with playing the old song "You don't own me"

So I have the same amount of intellectual interest in the Emmy's as a slutwalk, or that woman Milo Moiré, who invites people to fingerbang her in public as a strike against the patriarchy. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/s... Just insane people trying to tell us that their insanity is the best.

Which is why I consider third wave feminists merely the opposite side of the coin from Trump. Neither are sane. Then again, that's the state of television.

Re:The Emmys are not about television any more

[The Faywood Assassin]

Maybe because throughout history men have committed offense after offense towards women that have generated a white hot hatred of men?

Maybe if you actually listened to what they were saying, you'd understand that.

But they're only stupid bitches, right?

Re:The Emmys are not about television any more

[Ol Olsoc]

Maybe because throughout history men have committed offense after offense towards women that have generated a white hot hatred of men?

If I read you right, women have never committed any offense against men.

And I'm oh so interested that you assume that I am implying all women.

Because my dear Punchinello, it is only a subgroup, for some reason largely based in Hollywood and Academia genders studies programs,that engender that hatred.

And we understand that. This grouping is doing something very similar to all totalitarian groups. Identify an enemy, then go after them. Among these wome onf this political ilk, there may have been abused women, but there are certainly an overwheliming number of women who have just been trained to hate and hate hard. And like all totalitarian groups, guilt or innocence is based on identity, not facts.

This is exactly how Asia Argento, who is a co founder of the #metoo can speak to the terrible things that men do to women, but can herself collect pictures of a 12 year old boy, and fuck him merrily before he is of legal age, take another man's money to pay him hush money (sounds like someone we know?) then decide to keep some of it herself. Seems like statutory rape, and possession of kiddie porn to me. But it's okay, perhaps because she is not male, therefore not responsible, Punchinello? Side note - she claims it was the child's fault - sounds like the old story male pedos use, amirite Punchinello?

Maybe if you actually listened to what they were saying, you'd understand that.

But they're only stupid bitches, right?

I listen to the strong and professional women around me who have been and are successful, and not weak women, like ms Argento who believes there are separate rules for women that allow them to collect kiddie porn and administer fellatio and other sexual acts with children, or that crazy Milo Moiré,, in a wold where a man winking at a woman is sexual harassment, but wandering around in public allowing complete strangers to finger fuck her because feminism. Follow the link in my previous posting, but I think you did, and support that.

Nope, nope, sorry - those actions by third wave feminists are quite simply insane. Insane, not stupid. And so are you if you support that.

Re:Wrong.

[SqueakyMouse]

That'll be why Kevin Spacey treasures his awards then...

It's not that the big 3 shows are bad

[Snotnose]

it's just that this seems to be a golden age of TV. ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox are cranking out some damned good shows at the moment. But HBO/Netflix/et all are making even better shows. "but but titties! and 7 words we can't say on TV!". Um, no. GoT isn't consistently winning because of a few pairs of nice hooters. It's winning because it fucking rocks. It takes chances, and they pay off.

Let's be honest, Martin has lost control of his child. HBO owns that fucker. Do you think pudgie georgie is going to take time off his "let's worship this guy" tours to actually finish the next book? I don't. He's gonna croak with a french fry in his throat, HBO will hire ghost writers to turn the scripts into books.

Re:Go woke, go broke.

[DNS-and-BIND]

Which celebrities lined up against Obama? They didn't even criticize him after he bombed a Doctors Without Borders hospital and gunned down the fleeing patients. Remember that? Why is he not standing trial in front of the ICC at The Hague for that?

Re:No. I'm a liberal and he's right.

[CohibaVancouver]

I can take the conservatives' true criticisms.

Get back to me when you actually find some "true criticism" from a conservative.

Odds are good it can be rebutted in three fact-filled sentences, resulting in a stream of hatred and profanity in return.

What about Academy Awards?

[antdude]

Will it be the same soon? :P

Re:Go woke, go broke.

[stealth_finger]

Instead it's a bunch of self-important celebrities whining that they don't like the President.

To be fair, he is a dick.

Re:No. I'm a liberal and he's right.

[CohibaVancouver]

shifting loyalties, dubious ethics that they only use when it suits them, and [snip] the media support and propaganda

Hey Anonymous Coward, how do you look at the current administration in Washington and write those words with a straight face? You couldn't have described Trump, Ryan and McConnell, their toadies and Fox news any better if you'd tried.

It's all about the $$$$$

[The Faywood Assassin]

Awards are nice, but is broadcast TV still making money? If so, then is it increasing or decreasing? That's all that really matters.

Michael Bay hasn't won Best Director, but his movies make gobs of money . The MCU doesn't win any awards, but it also made more money than most small countries.

Re:Trump is a national tragedy, it's appropriate

[The Cynical Critic]

He doesn't just write a single "rant" every day, he writes at least one into the comments to practically every single new article and he's usually one of the first people in the comments.