Emmy Voters Admit: 'Who Has Time to Watch All This Crap?'
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- Emmy voting closed for the 78th awards with more than 27,000 Television Academy members across 31 peer groups casting ballots; the Creative Arts Emmys go Sept. 5-6 and the Primetime ceremony airs Sept. 14 on NBC.
- Variety's 10 anonymized ballots span a TV executive who shrugged 'who has time to watch all this crap?' and a cinematographer who declared 'the whole industry is now completely f—ed.'
- Area awards categories (hosted nonfiction and variety) showed not a single voter checking 'Yes' for every nominee and only four picking more than one show — suggesting the field isn't being used to spread wealth.
- The combined read: 'The Pitt' looks poised for drama, 'Widow's Bay' holds 'a considerable edge' over departing 'Hacks' in comedy, and 'Beef' vs. 'DTF St. Louis' in limited series with 'The Beast in Me' flagged as a spoiler.
- Variety's editor notes Emmy voters are 'a notably more out-of-the-loop bunch than the Oscar crowd' — most watch only a fraction of what they vote on and default to 'the title everyone's talking about.'
- Apple was named by one performer as having both the most overspent For Your Consideration campaign and the best-season network — a split verdict from a voter who had previously checked 'Hacks' every year.
Why it matters: With more than 27,000 Academy members across 31 peer groups and most voters watching only a fraction of the field they judge, multimillion-dollar For Your Consideration campaigns are a bet on buzz rather than viewership — and the snapshot points to a near-settled 'Pitt'/'Widow's Bay'/'Beef' race that one voter pegged Apple as over-spending to influence.
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