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Cable networks dominate Emmys

By Edward Wyatt
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, LOS ANGELES
Tuesday, Sep 23, 2008, Page 16

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With so much of prime-time network television being taken over by so-called reality shows, it is no wonder that the big winners at the 60th Primetime Emmys — an awards show that mainly celebrates acting and writing — would hail from cable rather than from the broadcast networks.

HBO, the perennial Emmy powerhouse, took home the most golden statuettes on Sunday, winning 26 Emmys, including awards for its made-for-television movie Recount, its mini-series John Adams, its comedy series Entourage and its drama series In Treatment.

AMC, the cable channel formerly known as American Movie Classics, won three awards, two of them for its first-year scripted series, Mad Men, which won best drama series, and one for Breaking Bad, which, with only seven episodes, was almost a mini-series. FX, the cable channel that is a cousin of the Fox network, also won two acting awards for its rookie-season drama, Damages, including one for Glenn Close, who was named best actress in a drama series.

The viewers of all those shows added together might not total the number that watched the Emmys broadcast. But television executives are nothing if not optimistic, and if anything, the performance of the five reality-show hosts who together played masters of ceremony on the awards show might inspire the executives not to abandon scripted television.

Broadcast television did capture some of its own accolades, with NBC’s 30 Rock sweeping the major comedy awards. It won best comedy series for the second straight year, Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin took home the awards for best comedy actress and actor, and Fey took home another award for her writing of the episode titled Cooter.

Fey, who last year thanked the “dozens” of people who watched the show, reminded viewers this year than the show “can be viewed on NBC.com, Hulu, iTunes, United Airlines and occasionally on actual television.”

ABC won three awards, two of them for much-admired first-year series. Jean Smart won best supporting actress for her role as a straight-talking mother on Samantha Who?, and Barry Sonnenfeld won the award for directing a comedy series for the pilot episode of Pushing Daisies. Those were two of the few new comedy series to survive last year’s strike-interrupted television season. ABC’s third victory was by Louis J. Horvitz for directing the 80th Academy Awards.

Though the theme of Emmys ceremony was a celebration of the golden age of television, that served only to highlight that much of the best work being done for the small screen today appears not on the networks but on cable.

Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men, said that the distinctions between network and cable mean little anymore. “If you did a show like LA Law right now, I think it would end up on FX,” he said in an interview on the red carpet. “There’s nothing on my show that can’t be shown on network television. It’s just they’re appealing to a different kind of audience. They have their audience and I have my audience, and I think it’s nice to have something for everybody.”

David Shore, an executive producer of House, MD, the top-rated Fox drama that was also a nominee for best drama series, said the disparities in audience rightly had little bearing on awards like the Emmys.

“There are awards for that; they’re called ratings,” Shore said. “There are really good shows on cable, and even if only 10 people are watching them, if they’re good they should be recognized. The shows they’ve selected are excellent.”

Perhaps the biggest change this year was in the assignment of hosting duties. Traditionally, the job has gone to a comedian who has some connection to the network televising the Emmys ceremony, as Conan O’Brien did two years ago on NBC.

In addition to showcasing one of the network’s big stars, the precedent usually had the added of advantage of managing to keep the audience entertained through what can be a tedious evening. Last year, however, Fox bucked that precedent, giving the job to Ryan Seacrest, the American Idol host, who received tepid reviews.

Seacrest was back as a host this year, however, joined by the other four nominees for a first-time award, outstanding host for a reality or reality-competition program. The other nominees were Tom Bergeron, of ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, Howie Mandel of NBC’s Deal or No Deal, Heidi Klum of Bravo’s Project Runway and Jeff Probst, the host of the granddaddy of reality shows, CBS’s Survivor.

None of those hosts opened the show, however; rather, it was Oprah Winfrey, the queen of all media, who took the stage first and ushered in the hosts. It was all downhill from there, as the hosts made a point of telling the audience how they were improvising, even pointing out the blank teleprompter at the back of the auditorium — as if the audience couldn’t tell.

“The government cannot even bail us out of this,” Mandel said, like a stand-up comic who realized too late that the audience was turning against him.

“I thought we were being punked as an audience,” Piven said backstage of the opening. “It was a celebration of nothingness so I was confused.”

Probst won the reality hosting Emmy, a victory that left some other winners nonplused.

Kirk Ellis, who won the writing award for his mini-series John Adams, reacted angrily at the fact that so few award winners were given time to say much of anything. “I thought it interesting that we can have 30 minutes of a show devoted to reality show hosts, but the people who create the work don’t have time to talk,” he said backstage after the show.

The Colbert Report won the award for best writing for a variety, music or comedy program, while the Comedy Central show from which it was spawned, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, won for outstanding variety, music or comedy series.

Weiner won for outstanding writing for a drama series for Mad Men, the most talked-about television series of the year.

Zeljko Ivanek won best supporting actor in a drama series for Damages. And Dianne Weist won best supporting actress in a drama series for In Treatment on HBO.

Jeremy Piven won his third straight award for supporting actor in a comedy for his portrayal of the brash agent Ari Gold on HBO’s Entourage.

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