Contributor Collaborative 3: Emmy Nominations

Welcome to the 3rd edition of The TV Ratings Guide's Contributor Collaborative. This edition sees Gena and Rebecca discuss the 2019 Emmy nominations. Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Gena
Holy shirt! After its third season, The Good Place finally broke into the Comedy Series category -- making it the only broadcast-network sitcom of the bunch. Ted Danson's nod for Lead Actor in a Comedy and Maya Rudolph's for Guest Actress in a Comedy were less surprising (they were both up last year, too), but nice to see; and while I was a little disappointed that recognition for TGP didn't extend to lead actress Kristen Bell or supporting actress D'Arcy Carden, it was still forking awesome to find "Janet(s)" (an excellent showcase episode for Carden) singled out for a writing nomination. A few more random observations:

1) Re: SNL, I'm guessing the Emmy voters must be as burned out on Alec Baldwin's Trump impression as I am, as he wasn't nominated for Supporting or Guest Actor in a Comedy this year;

2) Among the Drama acting nominees from This Is Us, I was thrilled to find Mandy Moore finally recognized for her star turn as the Pearson family matriarch, as well as pleasantly surprised to see Chris Sullivan (whose character struggled with fertility and mental-health issues this past season) score a nod for his supporting turn;

3) Of all the nominations, I think I was most excited about the hilarious "Holiday Party (I Did a Little Cocaine Tonight)" (from the Documentary Now! episode "Original Cast Album: Co-Op") being up for Original Music and Lyrics; and

4) I would say my biggest disappointment was the total shutout of Comedy Central's The Other Two, one of my new favorites.

Rebecca
I usually have a lot to complain about with the Emmy nominations, but this year's nominees aren't as bad as usual, even with some of their more unexpected picks. Comedy-wise, I was delighted by all the love for Schitt's Creek, though I was upset to see Grace and Frankie, Will & Grace, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Better Things all cut out of the acting categories. All of the comedy nominees are pretty worthy though, even if there were a few that I would swap out. Veep also deserved some more love all around, with the never-nominated Timothy Simons deserving some recognition for the show's final season. Drama was extremely weak this year, however, and there's plenty of nominees there that I wouldn't nominate in stronger years. Given the choices out there, there isn't much else to complain about there, but I would have loved to see Susan Kelechi Watson and Frances Conroy break into the Supporting Actress crop. In the Limited Series/Movie category, every nominee whose work I've seen is very worthy, but some nominations for ABC's Live In Front of a Studio Audience in the acting categories would have been nice to see. In the Variety categories, I was happy to see Amy Sedaris and Sarah Silverman's shows score nods, though I was hoping to see Tracey Ullman's Show score its third nomination in the Variety Sketch category. The Variety Talk category was pretty solid, though I would swap out The Daily Show for Late Night with Seth Meyers, which has been ignored in the category for years even though I find it to be one of the strongest of all the late-night talk shows.

Contributor Collaborative 2: Predictions for Love Island

Thanks everyone for making the first edition of Contributor Collaborative a success. If you missed it, you can view it by clicking here.

The second edition focuses on Love Island, which was a popular choice in the survey we sent out prior to the first edition. Alongside my own, here are thoughts by Gena, Rebecca, and Jessica.

Gena
I'm not really a fan of reality TV anyway, but Love Island airing every weeknight just seems like overkill -- even if CBS does initially attract the younger audience it's apparently aiming for, I could see them quickly getting burned out. It'll be interesting to see the numbers over the course of the first week.

Rebecca
This has all the ingredients to work... on MTV. On CBS, not so much. Love Island has a very different target audience than the typical CBS show. Big Brother is the exception, not the rule. I find it hard to believe that Love Island will be the rare young-skewing concept to break out on CBS, and the fact that it's airing so frequently probably won't help it if it would somehow manage to start strong. Fox similarly tried to launch its own new dating show this summer with Paradise Hotel. That attempt failed miserably. And Fox's audience is certainly better suited for a dating show than CBS. Love Island isn't completely doomed just because of a similar show flopping, but it certainly doesn't bode well for it. In the end, I think this ends up being part of a long line of high-profile CBS one-and-done reality flops.

Jessica
The anticipated debut of the US edition of Love Island will make its way to CBS airwaves. But like many of the CBS newbies with a different target audience, I believe this is not going to live up to the hype, as far as ratings goes. When Paradise Hotel on FOX premiered abysmally, I knew something similar will happen with Love Island. Top that off with a host people may not recognize unless you watch commercials or follow her on Instagram, and that will be a recipe for ratings disaster. Or would it? We'll let the jury decide once the ratings are out.

The Ratings Junkie
I just don't see Love Island working on CBS. Sure, the British version is huge and even does well on Hulu, but this does not look like something CBS's audience will enjoy. If it aired directly following Big Brother then maybe it would have a decent shot, but even then Big Brother has fallen quite a bit this year. This is supposed to air five nights a week, but time will tell if that actually happens. Remember, FOX decreased the amount of times Paradise Hotel aired per week when they saw how badly it was doing. Some international formats (like The Masked Singer, Pop/American Idol, The Voice) have done great in the United States, but I think this will be more of a My Kitchen Rules-type player, if anyone even remembers that show.

Contributor Collaborative 1: The CW's Strategy and What's Next for FOX

Welcome to our first-ever Contributor Collaborative. In this edition, we have two topics: The CW's current strategy and the future of FOX's summers. Make sure to leave your own thoughts in the comments below!

The CW's Strategy

Jessica:
For a show, it is really good to be airing on the CW. The CW basically renewed everything this season including the shows that were doing terribly in linear ratings. Going forward, with the Netflix deal, this is likely to be a short term fix. If Warner Bros. moves forward with its new streaming service, then the CW will have to figure out a way to rebrand itself. Based on current linear ratings, there has gotta be a ratings limit.

Gena:
I don't watch anything on The CW, but let me say one thing about it: After having my favorite show unceremoniously get axed two seasons in a row (FOX's The Last Man on Earth in 2018, and ABC's Speechless this year -- at least NBC's The Good Place, my last fave, gets a chance to wind down and conclude on its own terms next year), I can only imagine how great it must feel to be a fan of any of The CW's shows and not have to worry about it suddenly being canceled, regardless of ratings (generally speaking, of course).

The Ratings Junkie:
To me, it's notable that The CW is trying originals in the summer on Sundays at 8pm, given it's a night that they just reestablished in 2018. Granted, they are not doing too well there; Burden of Truth is getting rounded-up 0.1s in the A18-49 demo, and once dragged down a rerun of Supernatural to the infamous 0.0 A18-49 rating. It's probable that the network airs originals in the summer due to the inevitability of reruns doing terrible. Still, at a certain point it seems like they should start canceling some more shows. The phasing out of the Netflix deal might do that in the near future.


The Future of FOX's Summers

Jessica:
FOX's summers going forward will have game shows and reality shows plus a few new shows here and there. I don't expect the upcoming BH90210 revival to do well, as we've seen in recent reboots and revivals, but reboots and revivals will continue to be the thing that network studios want to make in order to make some money.

Gena:
I don't know, but I'm curious to see What Just Happened? with Fred Savage (which is supposed to air a half-hour before another show I've been watching on Sunday nights, the Renaissance Faire dramedy American Princess on Lifetime). I can't imagine it'll do all that well ratings-wise after animation reruns, and I'm not sure how much promotion/marketing will help or hurt it, but I like the idea of summer seasons being used to try out different things and take chances on quirkier projects.

The Ratings Junkie:
"New Fox" wants to rely more on unscripted programming, so I don't think they'll be too picky when it comes to renewing current shows. So You Think You Can Dance has been on FOX longer than American Idol did, yet the former has not looked strong in years. First Responders Live is far from doing great, but is from Dick Wolf and seemingly on-brand for their future. Even if their summer originals aren't super strong, I can easily see them continue to shift away from reruns of in-season shows.

Contributor Collaborative Edition 1: Reader Ideas

The TV Ratings Guide is looking to start a new feature this summer, tentatively titled Contributor Collaborative. In the series, a rotating group of article contributors will be discussing topics related to TV ratings. We need you to help decide which topic(s) we will write about in the first edition. If you have a preference, fill out the confidential form below!