Connect with us

Breaking News

1

NATAS’ Independent Investigative Report Into Daytime Emmys Concluded To Address Daytime Dramas Concerns

NATAS (The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences) released today its independent review of the 45th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, which came on the heels of a potential threatened boycott by executives and notables from the four daytime drama series, if certain procedures were not addressed and their concerns not heard for continuing to participate in the annual event scheduled next year in May.

Michael Fairman TV spoke with NATAS president, Adam Sharp, to ask pointed questions based on the findings of the independent investigation reports findings. That interview will be posted later today.

For now, here are the official report findings released to members of the press this morning ad how the Daytime Emmys and NATAS will address the concerns at-hand.

“From NATAS: On July 30, The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) commissioned an independent review of the 45th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, and in particular, concerns raised by members of the Daytime television community regarding its policies and procedures.  The law firm of Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth of Washington, DC, was engaged to conduct this investigation and report their findings and recommendations to the NATAS Board of Trustees.  The nature of their engagement was as neutral finders of facts and not as advocates for or representatives of NATAS.  Their work is now complete, having included a review of thousands of pages of documents and emails along with several days of interviews with NATAS staff and competition participants.

The resulting report was presented to the NATAS Board of Trustees on Friday, November 2.  It is thorough and fair. It levies criticism where criticism is due. And it rightly identifies many ways in which we must do better.  To that end, NATAS strongly supports and intends to substantially adopt the Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth recommendations:

We will update and clarify our rulebooks. When we release the 2019 Daytime Emmys “Call for Entries” on November 12, we will update several category criteria to eliminate opportunities for confusion. We will in particular update the requirements in the performer categories (which are at the heart of much of the concern we heard), and we will more specifically define terms such as “episode” where relevant. Additionally, we will audit the guidelines for our other Emmy® competitions to similarly reduce confusion and differences across competitions

We will provide additional resources to the Daytime Emmys:. The 2018 Daytime Emmys generated a record number of entries and tremendous growth in both in-hall and at-home audience, but we did not scale our operations commensurately.

We will add at least one full-time and several part-time positions to our Daytime Emmy® Awards team. While all our staff contribute in meaningful ways to every part of the process, we will divide the leadership of this growing team such that — consistent with the report’s recommendations — the competition and show production will be led by different members of our senior executive team.

Senior Vice President David Michaels will again serve as Executive Producer of the May ceremonies, focusing his energies to build on the success of the 2018 shows, but Executive Director Brent Stanton will take independent and separate responsibility for overseeing the competition.

For processes with potentially adverse results, such as entry disqualification, there will be new and additional review steps — a “second pair of eyes” — and there will be new requirements for documentation. This will help ensure that decisions and guidance are consistent and metered out fairly, and that the handling of such events is appropriately documented.

We will better articulate and make public our core policies and procedures. We will be tasking the Awards team with more specifically documenting and publishing:

  1. the procedures for reporting and investigating concerns about the awards competition, entries, nominees and winners;
  2. the guidelines and “checklist” for vetting and potentially disqualifying entries;
  3. the process and criteria by which we or our accountants select judges, break ties, and/or nullify judges’ ballots;
  4. internal rules and safeguards that ensure consistent application of our policies; and other matters as we identify.

We will distribute these improved resources as they are completed in the coming months, and will provide coaching around and strict enforcement of these policies and procedures.

We will apply our rules consistently and transparently. We will no longer readily grant deadline extensions or other extraordinary exceptions to our rules. Any technical assistance or waiver we grant must be provided equally to all entrants in an affected category, if not the competition as a whole. And any such assistance or waiver will be documented.

Finally, at the end of the competition we will prepare a Transparency Report, providing a high-level summary of how our rules were employed and enforced over the course of the competition.

We will seek to work more closely with the Television Academy. Recognizing that participants in the Daytime Emmy® competition may be more likely to be members of the Television Academy than of NATAS, we hope to better engage our sister Academy in our processes (as representatives of their members). These efforts could include:

  1. More consciously prioritizing Television Academy membership as a criterion for judging participation;
  2. Requesting that the Television Academy reinstate sending emails to their membership encouraging participation as Daytime Emmy® judges;
  3. Inviting a representative of the Television Academy and its members to begin participating again in our Daytime Emmy® nomination cut-off calls; and
  4. Inviting a representative of the Television Academy to review questioned submissions, observe backstage operations, and/or be present for the application of statue bands at the Daytime Emmy® ceremony.

We appreciate that the missteps of this and of past years may have impacted some entrants’ confidence in the Daytime Emmy Awards, and we are absolutely committed to earning back their trust.  We believe that through these and other improvements, we will once again meet the expectations all participants rightfully have of us.”

So, what do you think of the independent report findings? Do you hope the four network soaps will now participate in the upcoming competition? Share your thoughts below.

Leave a comment | 1 Comment

1 Comment
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Daytime Emmys have long outlived its time.
It’s boring and stupid, actually..
Nobody really gives a hoot about anything daytime to cause it to have ’emmy’s’ LOL

Also– whenever there is a competition to be judged the names of the judges are known/given.
I have never heard the names of the judges; who in the heck is judging the soap awards, why so secret.
The judges should be publicly named.

I rarely agree on the picked winners, many that do not submit their entries had much better performances than the winners.

Daytime Emmys come down to buying a new expensive dress to show off and be seen, ehhh

Daytime Emmys <– bwahaa yah whoopee! 🙂

Breaking News

George Cheeks, CBS President & CEO, on Timeline to Launch New Daytime Drama, ‘The Gates’: “We’re So Focused on Getting it Right”

March 2024 will be remembered in the TV and soap world when the news broke that CBS is prepping a brand new daytime drama. Many had thought a major network would never bring a new daytime soap into the world, given that the last time it was attempted was 25 years ago when the now defunct Passions bowed on NBC.

However, The Gates is definitely in development and moving forward with some major players associated with it including: Michele Val Jean as The Gates writer, showrunner and one of its executive producers, and Sheila Ducksworth from NAACP Venture

Now, for the first time since its announcement, George Cheeks, the president and CEO of CBS and chief content officer for news and sports at Paramount+, spoke on the project that will feature a Black family as its central focus who live in a wealthy gated community.

Photo: NAACP

Speaking with Vulture, and when asked if The Gates is really something that truly has a chance of getting on the air, Cheeks clarified, “It’s super real. And just to give you a little bit of the backstory,  when we hired Sheila Ducksworth to run the NAACP Venture, she and I had multiple meetings talking about what different genres she was going to lean into, and we talked a lot about daytime.”

Cheeks added, “One of the things that the data made very clear to both of us is that daytime soap operas over index with Black women, and yet when you look at soap operas, it’s usually sort of a white-led family with supporting characters that reflect more of our society. So we just thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to flip that and make the core anchor family a Black family, and then make the other characters reflect more the broader scope of society?”

Photo: JPI

The CEO gave props to Michele Val Jean,  and how Ducksworth came to the table with the former B&B and GH writer. “She found this great writer, Michele Val Jean, who’s been in the soap opera space for 30 years. She came up with a pitch, and we loved it,” shares Cheeks. “We brought Procter & Gamble into it as well, because if there were going to be (product) integrations, we could do it more holistically and organically. All of that is to say, we did a lot of work on the front end to put this together. So while yes, it’s development, it’s accelerated development.”

When prodded on the timeline of when The Gates could come to full fruition, Gates related, “The actual timeline and when we’re going to do it is still uncertain, because we want to get this right. I mean, there hasn’t been a new soap opera launch since I can’t even begin to tell you when. But we have great success with Bold and the Beautiful and Young and the Restless, and so we think we’re the right folks to be launching a new soap. I wish I could tell you more about exact timing, but we’re so focused on getting it right, and that will dictate when we’re ready to launch it.”

The CBS exec also shared that whether The Gates will wind up an hour soap or half-hour is not yet determined, but that it is being developed as an hour show.

So, after reading what George Cheeks, the CBS President & CEO had to say about ‘The Gates’, are you even more excited for what looks to the first new network soap in 25 years? Comment below.

Continue Reading

Breaking News

Robyn Bernard, ‘General Hospital’s’ Terry Brock, Dead at 64

Former General Hospital star, Robyn Bernard, who played aspiring singer Terry Brock has died. She was 64-years-old.

Bernard’s body was found Tuesday in San Jacinto, California. A Riverside County Coroner told TMZ they identified the actress’ body using her fingerprints after deputies responded to a death investigation call on Tuesday March 12th.

Sources told the outlet that Bernard’s body was found in the wee hours of the morning. The cause of death has yet to be determined.

Photo: ABC

Bernard joined General Hospital back in 1984 as Terry Brock, the daughter of the abusive D.L. Brock (played by David Groh). Robyn remained on the ABC soap opera for six years before making her exit in 1990. At one point, Terry’s stepmother would become Bobbie Spencer (the late Jackie Zeman) when the nurse married her father.

Terry was involved in the Laurelton Murders storyline and after first setting her sights on Frisco Jones, wound up with killer Kevin O’Connor. Later, Terry was blamed for several murders and in the end killed Kevin in self-defense. In addition, Terry had a relationship with Dusty Walker played by none other than Shaun Cassidy.  She eventually left Port Charles after landing her own recording contract.

Photo: ABC

The last time GH Fans may have seen Bernard was in 2014, when she appeared at the GH Fan Club Weekend Past Cast event. Robyn is pictured below with the late Susan Brown (ex-Gail) at the fan gathering. She has been out of the limelight for several years.

Photo: JPI

In addition to her role on GH, Bernard was featured throughout her TV career on primetime’s Simon & Simon, Tour of Duty and The Facts of Life.

Share your remembrances and condolences for GH alum Robyn Bernard and her loved ones via the comment section below.

Continue Reading

Breaking News

51st Annual Daytime Emmy Awards Announce Broadcast Date on CBS

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) revealed on Tuesday, that the 51st Annual Daytime Emmy Awards will be broadcast live on Friday night, June 7th (8 – 10 PM, ET/delayed PT) on the CBS Television Network, and available to stream live and on-demand on Paramount+*.

This year will mark the 18th time CBS has broadcast the Daytime Emmy Awards, which is more than any other network.

The 2024 Daytime Emmys will take place at the Westin Bonaventure in downtown Los Angeles. Back in December of 2023, the delayed 50th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards were also held at that venue. The June 7th date for the upcoming ceremony will be the first time in several years that the event is scheduled a few weeks earlier than normal; excluding last year’s revised date to the actors and writers strikes.

Photo: NATAS

Lifetime Achievement honoree, nominations, host, and additional information will be announced in the coming weeks.

In a statement, Adam Sharp, President and CEO of NATAS noted, “We eagerly anticipate our return in June as we once again partner with CBS to recognize the exceptional and talented individuals who make daytime television great. We’re thrilled to kick off our second half-century of the Daytime Emmys.”

The Daytime Emmy Awards have recognized outstanding achievement in television programming and crafts since 1974, honoring work in a variety of categories, including daytime dramas, talk shows, instructional programming, hosting, culinary, and legal/courtroom programs. In 2021, NATAS and the Television Academy jointly announced plans to realign the Daytime and Primetime Emmy Awards to be organized by content genre, as opposed to program airtime.

Photo: JPI

The 51st Annual Daytime Emmy Awards will once again be produced by NATAS and Associated Television International (ATI), which produced Daytime Emmy Award ceremonies on The CW in 2009 and on CBS in 2010, 2011, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Adam Sharp and Lisa Armstrong are executive producers from NATAS, while David McKenzie is executive producer from ATI.

So, glad to know that the 51st Annual Daytime Emmy Awards honoring performance and shows in the 2023 calendar year, will be held in early June this year, and once again broadcast on CBS? Comment below.

Continue Reading

Video Du Jour

Peter Reckell returns for a second visit with Michael Fairman following the wrap-up of his recent run as Bo Brady on Days of our Lives.Leave A Comment

Recent Comments

Power Performance

Kim Coles as Whitley

Days of our Lives

Airdate: 7-24- 2023

Popular