The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) has made several new rules for the 2019 Daytime Emmy Awards, which Soap Central reported on in November, when the substantial changes were first announced. But another new rule that was recently released has many fans confused: NATAS will no longer be posting the acting reel submissions online.
The organization originally began sharing clips from key categories five years ago, hoping that the reels would help spark "fan excitement for the telecast and engagement on social media" But the move ended up leading to a huge debacle: both Patrika Darbo and Jennifer Bassey had their Emmys for Outstanding Guest Performer in a Digital Daytime Drama Series revoked last year after it was revealed that submission rules had been broken, and all four daytime dramas threatened to boycott the 2019 Daytime Emmy Awards in response to claims of favoritism, ambiguous rules, and allegations that winners were known in advance of the 2018 ceremony. In light of the controversy, NATAS has decided to cease public distribution of acting reels, stating that it provides competitors in certain categories a weapon to potentially take down a rival.
"Looking at the original issue that brought up these protests and this investigation last year, where one entrant in the competition had gone on YouTube and pulled the reels of his competitors and, awards manual in hand, scrutinized every second of those reels and found potential violations that our staff in the vetting process and our judges in the judging process had missed; well, he only screened the categories that his show was competing in," NATAS president and CEO Adam Sharp explains to Variety. "So the same way as you wouldn't want a scenario where, in the middle of a trial all the evidence is put on the courthouse steps and the public can just come up and challenge whatever pieces they want and overrule the jury in the process, we determined that essentially handing these on-air raw submission materials over to competitors in a category would create the potential for abuse and the potential for an unfair imbalance."
Sharp explains that NATAS' only options were to upload clip reels for every category or none of the categories, and because they don't have the resources or the rights to every single clip, the organization unfortunately had to choose the latter.
As for whether or not fans should expect any drama similar to last year, Sharp says NATAS has worked hard to make the competition and proceedings as fair as possible.
"This year we tried to excise from our rules a lot of ambiguities like [the definition of an episode], tried to provide more definitions, and I think over the course of the year discovered a few other areas where we could keep strengthening," he shares. "I wouldn't put down the Daytime Emmys as perfect. I don't think any competition is perfect, especially when trying to award an industry that is changing so rapidly. But we have made substantial gains over last year. I think we're now staying ahead of that curve better than we ever have."
Even though NATAS has chosen to not make this year's acting reels public, Soap Central has provided synopses for each clip and provided links to our comprehensive recaps of those episodes so you can get a better feel for what action took place. For Soap Central's complete acting reel coverage, click here.
What do you think of NATAS' decision not to release the Daytime Emmy nominee reels to the public? What are your thoughts on the explanation behind the decision? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
