Unlike some of its nominees, which never fail to grace the television screen regularly, the 43rd annual Daytime Emmy Awards have opted to skip being shown on air again for the second time in three years, Variety reports.
According to officials at the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the reason doesn’t boil down to watchability because, as most of America knows, daytime shows rule the ratings. Shows like Jeopardy and Family Feud, as well as Dr. Phil Show and Entertainment Tonight, reign currently in the top ten most watched among the syndicated network TV category, according to the most recent Nielsen report. These daytime shows even share the list with viewership juggernauts like Law and Order: SVU and The Big Bang Theory and still come out on top. So, clearly, there is no lack of popularity among the nominees for the Daytime Emmy Awards.
No, in fact, the issue boiled down to sheer cost. While the Daytime Emmy Awards are running in the last legs of the awards season marathon with ample weeks between other major awards ceremonies like the Oscars, the Grammys, and especially the early-bird Emmys and Golden Globes, NATAS made the analysis that there simply isn’t a generous enough pool for the Daytime Emmys to step into, no matter how glamorous their swimsuit. NATAS estimated that to produce the ceremony to air on television across the nation would cause the budget to spill into the six-figure range, which the organization determined to be too expensive a price tag.
The Daytime Emmys’ past-year low ratings generally haven’t helped the show either. That combined with the extravagent cost to broadcast the awards ceremony on a network or two caused them to sign a license with CBS-and-Lionsgate-owned cabler Pop, locking both the 42nd annual and the 43rd annual into a telecasting contract which, of course, concludes after this year’s ceremony.
The move has benefited both the Daytime Emmys and Pop together; after last year’s telecast, Pop experienced its highest ratings in its more than two-decade history, drawing in 900,000 viewers and slipping into the number two spot on social media’s most talked about show in the Nielsen Twitter TV report, directly behind Game of Thrones, according to Deadline.
When the Daytime Emmys found its home in Pop in 2014, it came as a sigh of relief to everyone involved. After all, the ceremony had moved between four networks in less than ten years, hopping from CBS to ABC to the CW to HLN without ever finding its roots until finally it lost its way altogether.
Even so, the Daytime Emmys have every plan to defy the odds and inch its way back to the television screen next year, and even without the network cameras rolling, NATAS president Bob Mauro has every intention on keeping it an awards show on par with the rest.
“We will be putting on a world-class awards celebration honoring the best and brightest of Daytime television and look forward to an exciting show,” said Mauro to Variety. “All efforts regarding returning the annual gala to television in 2017 are under way.”
The awards ceremony will be held in downtown Los Angeles on May 1st, and as of yet, there is no word as to who will host.