2020 Emmy nominations reveal the other side of the streaming revolution

Looking back, the 71st Primetime Emmys were the quiet before the storm. "[I]t feels like something is ending," The AV Club's Erik Adams wrote after the ceremony last September, noting that the "72nd edition of the awards will be the first that has to contend with the original programming of the Pluses and the Maxes and the Peacocks."

On Tuesday, the shift was confirmed: Of the 16 networks that notched more than 10 nominations for the 72nd ceremony, six were exclusively streaming services — an Emmy first — while Netflix topped the overall nominations for only the second time, with a record 160 nominations. There's no doubt that it's a streamer's world now, but with the 2020 Emmys' surprising contenders, improved diversity, and refreshingly competitive categories, if this is the new, then good riddance to the old.

Amazingly, all of the viable new streaming services came out of the starting gate as contenders: Disney+ earned 19 nominations while Apple TV+ had 18 (Peacock's originals have been largely delayed until 2021, while HBO Max, which is considered separate from HBO, launched just four days before the Emmy eligibility cutoff, with most of its marquee titles also coming later). Even the famously-floundering phone-only streamer Quibi notched 10 nominations, more than Showtime, A&E, or TBS. The presence of new streamers adds spice to stale categories, like Disney+'s The Mandalorian eking into Outstanding Drama Series, and crowd favorite Ramy Youssef getting a comedic acting nod for Hulu's Ramy.

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Youssef is also one of only a small handful of Muslim Americans to have ever been recognized by the Television Academy, and part of an overall welcome, and overdue, trend toward improving diversity. Black actors, for example, dominated Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series (helped along by Octavia Spencer in Netflix's Self Made and Kerry Washington in Hulu's Little Fires Everywhere) while Billy Porter of Pose and Jeremy Pope of Hollywood added to Netflix's pot.

The famously redundant awards show also won't have a returning winner in either of its major categories, with Fleabag and Game of Thrones off the air. Could Outstanding Comedy go to Amazon Prime's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? Will the Outstanding Drama be Netflix's Ozark or The Crown? All seem like possibilities. It's exciting, a word that doesn't usually describe "the Emmys."

Appropriately, this year's awards ceremony will likely itself be "streamed," in lieu of a live event. It'd be a serendipitous twist: there couldn't be a more fitting way to pass the TV torch, finally, to the streamers.