Emmys expand the Best Series categories to 7 nominees, define the difference between 'drama' and 'comedy'

Today, the Television Academy — which is responsible for annually honoring the year's best TV shows at the Emmy Awards — announced a number of sweeping changes designed to bring its nominations in line with the modern television landscape.

The first and simplest change is the decision to expand the number of nominees in the Best Drama and Best Comedy categories from six to seven, in an effort to address the "dramatic increase in series production" in recent years.

The second change attempts to clarify the murky standards separating the drama and comedy genres, offering new definitions that depend on the length of the program. From now on, all 30-minute programs will be treated as comedies, and all hour-long programs will be treated as dramas. Most notably, this affects shows that straddle the line between comedy and drama, like Netflix's Orange is the New Black, which was nominated in the Best Original Comedy category last year despite its hour-long episodes.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The third change transitions the Best Miniseries category to Best Limited Series, defining the new category as shows with " two or more episodes with a total running time of at least 150 program minutes that tell a complete, non-recurring story, and do not have an ongoing storyline and/or main characters in subsequent seasons." Most notably, this affects TV shows like FX's Fargo and HBO's True Detective, which was nominated in the Best Original Drama category last year despite its non-continuous storyline.<

The fourth change redefines the Guest Actor and Guest Actress categories, limiting eligibility to actors who appear in fewer than 50 percent of episodes in a season.

The fifth and final change splits the Best Variety Series category into two separate categories, honoring Outstanding Variety Talk (e.g. The Daily Show) and Outstanding Variety Sketch (e.g. Saturday Night Live).