• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, Yesterday

This week’s 2025 Primetime Emmy Award nominations revive memories of TV Blogs past in which various themes have recurred.

These have included ruminations on the explosion in the sheer number of nominations that has paralleled the explosion in TV content.

“The Emmys are beginning to seem like a kids’ sports event where trophies are given out just for participating,” I wrote in July 2017, and other times too. It is time to put this one to bed.

Another recurring theme is the lament that the Emmys get a prime-time showcase on one of the four broadcast networks each year, but then the biggest awards end up going to shows on pay-cable and streaming, and comparatively few (if any) to the broadcasters.

So, what you have is a situation in which the broadcast networks devote three hours of their airtime to promoting video content services with whom they compete for viewers’ time and attention. 

“Each year in September, one of the four broadcast networks gladly and without reservation devotes three hours of precious prime time to embellishing the reputations of shows seen elsewhere, whose renown and popularity contribute to the erosion of network audiences,” I opined in July 2022. 

“Why should network TV air this award show every year if it exists to honor and promote everybody but them?” I asked. 

I will acknowledge that one reason might be that the networks make money from Emmy ad sales like they always do. I also acknowledge that this topic is now as stale as day-old bread.

“The Emmys Are On This Weekend, But Does Anybody Really Care?” read a headline on a TV Blog previewing the Emmys in September 2016.

This TV Blog’s hypothesis was that award shows in general were losing their luster. This was borne out in blog after blog about steady ratings declines for all of the big awards shows -- the Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Golden Globes.

At the moment, however, some of the declines have leveled off or inched back upwards. As a blog topic, this one is no fun anymore.

In a number of blogs, I described the Emmys and Hollywood’s other awards shows as exercises in egotistical self-congratulation.

“It’s great that people are being recognized and awarded in their industry for their work,” I wrote in September 2016. “More power to them, but this annual televised celebration of their industry almost always comes across as gross showing off.” But today I ask myself: So, what else is new?

Where does a TV blogger go from here? I think the thing to do here is to lay these other issues to rest in the hope that something new comes along to take their place.

As for this week’s nominations, “Severance” was the leading nominee of all shows, with 27 nominations in the scripted drama category. 

In the scripted comedy category, “The Studio” was number one with 23 nominations. They’re both on Apple TV+.

In all, there were 382 nominations in 119 categories -- only a fraction of which will be seen on this year’s “77th Primetime Emmy Awards” scheduled for Sunday, September 14, on CBS.

Photo credit: “Severance” photo courtesy of Apple TV.