HOW IS THE STREAMING ERA IMPACTING THE EMMY NOMINATIONS?

The average US audience demand for TV series nominated for five or more major Emmys has grown 65.5% in the last half decade, from 11.3x more in-demand than the average show in 2017 to 18.7x for this year’s top nominees, new Parrot Analytics data reveals.

In 2017, Emmy voters rewarded more character-focused drama and comedy series like “Veep,” “Silicon Valley,” and “Better Call Saul”. While these series did have loyal fanbases, they only cracked the lower levels of Parrot Analytics’ “Outstanding” category of audience demand. With “WandaVision” and “The Mandalorian” racking up a combined 13 major Emmy nominations (46 overall), and “The Boys” getting a nod for “Best Drama,” this 2021 is by far the Emmy’s most crowd pleasing year of the streaming era.

The rise in both the supply and audience demand of genre programming over the last half decade - starting with “Game of Thrones” and “Stranger Things”, and currently led by “WandaVision” and “The Mandalorian” - has correlated with a rise in critical recognition of these massive global hits, as the tastes of the Television Academy and the TV consuming public draw closer and closer.

“Emmy voters have traditionally stuck with the same series and talent year after year when it comes to nominations, even if those shows or talent don’t win. But the proliferation of streaming and increase in audience demand for genre shows across new platforms have become seemingly impossible for the Academy to ignore,”  said Julia Alexander, Senior Strategy Analyst at Parrot Analytics.

While the Emmys still acknowledge and reward abstract comedies and dramas driven by auteur directors, an increase in the supply and demand of genre entertainment has clearly impacted the series that the Television Academy is celebrating. Parrot Analytics’ data provides hard evidence to back up a trend that many analysts and reporters have suspected - that the Emmy voters and US audiences are growing closer together in what they consider to be great television.