2023 Emmy Nomination Ballots: Submissions, Strategies and More
It’s that time of year again. Emmy nomination voting has begun and with it comes the full ballots of submission that Television Academy members will use to guide their choices. As with every year, there are highlights and more than a few raised eyebrows at some of the choices and strategies at hand so let’s take a look some of them.
Going with single submissions in writing and/or directing is a classic Emmy strategy to help ensure a nomination and several shows employed that this season. The current Comedy Series champion, AppleTV+’s Ted Lasso submitted five episodes in directing up one from last year, where it won. Interestingly, it only submitted the season (series?) finale for writing. Abbott Elementary submitted three episodes for directing in its second season, a category it failed to earn a nod in for its freshman year. It also submitted three for writing, which won Quinta Brunson the Emmy last year. The much buzzed-about third season of the Max Original The Other Two didn’t earn any nominations from its previous two seasons (first at Comedy Central, then at HBO Max) and is going for both directing and writing with the episode “Cary & Brooke Go to an AIDS Play.”
Drama Series sees Succession with three submissions, including “Connor’s Wedding,” the episode that killed Brian Cox’s family patriarch Logan Roy, but not the series finale. “Connor’s Wedding” is also the show’s sole writing submission. Succession won writing last year (also with a single submission) but lost all three bids for directing to Squid Game. Recent Emmy monarch, which made a clean Emmy sweep two years ago, has four episodes submitted for directing and, as is tradition, one for writing (“Gunpowder”).
HBO’s megahit zombie series The Last of Us is playing a very smart game, submitting the same single episode for both writing and directing, the overwhelming emotional favorite of the season, “Long, Long Time,” a zombie-less bottle episode completely focused on mismatched, lifelong lovers Bill and Frank, played Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, who only ever appear here.
All eyes will also be on the second season of The White Lotus as the 10-time Emmy winner moves from Limited Series to Drama Series as a result of bringing back Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya, but as creator Mike White wrote and directed all 10 episodes (of both seasons) there is only one submission to be had in both categories, per Emmy rules. They have no less than 15 acting submissions; 14 in supporting and one in Guest Actor (Jon Gries). The show won both supporting categories last year and dominated the nominations with 3/7 in supporting actor and an astonishing 5/7 in supporting actress.
Not to be outdone, Succession has 19 acting submissions; three in lead actor, one in lead actress, four in supporting actor, two in supporting actress, four in guest actor and five in guest actress. The show nabbed 14 acting nominations last year, winning one (Matthew Macfadyen).
Even with a shortened season due to the WGA strike in early May, Saturday Night Live doubled their submissions from last year, from eight to 16; 9 men (Steve Martin and Martin Short co-hosted together) and 7 women.
As a reminder, Drama Series and Comedy Series are locked in at eight slots but here is how we reach the actual number of nominations in the rest of the top categories, based on the number of submissions. However, acting categories must have parity between actor and actress, with the larger number of submissions overriding. For example, this year in Drama Guest Actor there are 102 submissions and in Drama Guest Actress there are 80. Both will have six nominees, defaulting to the larger submission base. In Comedy Directing, one slot must be allocated to a multi-cam directed episode. Multi-cam can actually hit a threshold to trigger its own category if there are enough submissions (20) but not enough this year (16).
0 – 7 submissions = submissions are screened by a peer group for a nomination; any entry that receives nine-tenths approval will receive a nomination
8 – 11 submissions = 2 nominations
12 – 15 submissions = 3 nominations
16 – 19 submissions = 4 nominations
20 – 80 submissions = 5 nominations
81 – 160 submissions = 6 nominations
161 – 240 submissions = 7 nominations
> 240 submissions = 8 nominations
DRAMA SERIES
- 8 slots for Drama Series from 163 submissions
- 6 slots for Drama Lead Actor from 109 submissions
- 6 slots for Drama Lead Actress from 109 submissions
- 8 slots for Drama Supporting Actor from 345 submissions
- 8 slots for Drama Supporting Actress from 312 submissions
- 6 slots for Drama Guest Actor from 102 submissions
- 6 slots for Drama Guest Actress from 80 submissions
- 7 slots for Drama Directing from 214 submissions
- 7 slots for Drama Writing from 167 submissions
COMEDY SERIES
- 8 slots for Comedy Series from 95 submissions
- 5 slots for Comedy Lead Actor from 68 submissions
- 5 slots for Comedy Lead Actress from 76 submissions
- 7 slots for Comedy Supporting Actor from 239 submissions
- 7 slots for Comedy Supporting Actress from 202 submissions
- 6 slots for Comedy Guest Actor from 130 submissions
- 6 slots for Comedy Guest Actress from 98 submissions
- 6 slots for Comedy Directing from 146 submissions (including one must-have multi-cam)
- 6 slots for Comedy Writing from 150 submissions
LIMITED, ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR TV MOVIE
- 5 slots for Limited or Anthology Series from 51 submissions
- 5 slots for Television Movie from 61 submissions
- 6 slots for Limited Series/TV Movie Lead Actor from 97 submissions
- 6 slots for Limited Series/TV Movie Lead Actress from 96 submissions
- 7 slots for Limited Series/TV Movie Supporting Actor from 189 submissions
- 7 slots for Limited Series/TV Movie Supporting Actress from 176 submissions
- 6 slots for Limited Series/TV Movie Directing from 121 submissions
- 6 slots for Limited Series/TV Movie Writing from 111 submissions
TALK/SCRIPTED VARIETY SERIES
- 4 slots for Talk Series from 19 submissions
- 3 slots for Variety Series from 12 submissions
Voting for Emmy nominations is now open until June 25 at 10pm PT. Nominations for this year’s Emmy Awards and the Creative Arts Emmys will be announced on July 12. Emmy winner voting is August 17-28. The Creative Arts Awards and Governors Gala will be held over two nights, September 8 and 9 and the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards will be September 18 live on FOX.
2023 Emmy Rules and Procedures
Here is the complete list of 2023 Emmy nominations ballots.
- Animation PDF
- Art Direction PDF
- Casting PDF
- Character Voice-Over PDF
- Cinematography PDF
- Cinematography for Nonfiction PDF
- Cinematography for Reality PDF
- Commercial PDF
- Costumes PDF
- Directing PDF
- Directing: Nonfiction PDF
- Directing: Reality PDF
- Documentary/Nonfiction Program PDF
- Host – Reality/Reality-Competition PDF
- Lighting Design/Lighting Direction and
Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control PDF - Main Title Design PDF
- Makeup/Hairstyling PDF
- Music PDF
- Narrator PDF
- Performer PDF
- Picture Editing PDF
- Picture Editing: Nonfiction PDF
- Picture Editing: Reality PDF
- Program PDF
- Sound Editing PDF
- Sound Editing: Nonfiction PDF
- Sound Mixing PDF
- Sound Mixing: Nonfiction PDF
- Special Visual Effects PDF
- Stunt Coordination/Performance PDF
- Writing PDF
- Writing: Nonfiction PDF
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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