Ever major soap eligible for a 2025 Daytime Emmy Award — The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of our Lives, General Hospital, and The Young and the Restless — walked away with at least one statuette at the Friday, October 17, awards ceremony. But alas, the show wasn’t seen on a major network.
The 52nd annual event, which honored the best and brightest in daytime television programming for the year 2024, was not broadcast on TV but rather streamed on the Emmys’ official platform and online. TV Insider chatted with Adam Sharp, President & CEO, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), about the possibility of the show ever getting back on broadcast TV.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Sharp tells TV Insider. “It’s an evolving conversation and certainly, an evolving marketplace. Having our deal come up with CBS at the same time of their merger was not the best of timing. It’s possible that window of conversation will open under new management. But, at the same time, we have to acknowledge that it is a different marketplace for viewers.”
Deborah Norville received the Lifetime Achievement Award (Daytime Emmys / NATAS)
Producers kept the streaming awards under three hours, which, Sharp says, was the goal. While many feel broadcast is the preferred platform for an awards show that honors programs on television, Sharp does recognize the pros of presenting the awards via streaming. “One nice thing about owning the platform and not having affiliates to apologize to [for going over] is that there’s not hard out,” Sharp points out. “But you want to respect the audience. A three-hour point is a bit of a traditional time limit for an awards show.”
NATAS partnered with Access Hollywood for a highlights special. It’s an idea that may catch on in future years. “Maybe this allows us to package things [in a new way],” Sharp suggests. “Look at the late-night talk shows. The linear audience isn’t necessarily the primary focus, the way it once was. The majority of the audience for [The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon] is not watching the linear broadcast. They’re watching segments on YouTube.”
While the Daytime Emmys bring the entire community together on awards show night, Sharp is aware that viewers have niche interests.
“Is there a world where the linear ceremony is targeted to the in-room audience?” the executive muses. “And there is, for example, a 30-minute edited soap show that is packaged for one audience? And a 30-minute edited culinary awards [presentation] for another audience? They could be tailored to the fragmented narrowcast model that a lot of the audience is getting their content from.”
It would certainly be something different! Guess we’ll have to wait and see what the future brings.
The 52nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, Streaming Now, watchtheemmys.tv