As There is no Host, Emmy Producers Have a Major Shift of Plans for Telecast

It is no secret anymore as to how Emmy Awards will not be having any host this year taking cue from the success of the concept from the Oscars. ON that note, the producers of Emmys have decided to take a different approach for the telecast too. Done+Dusted partner Guy Carrington was in the production truck last year at the Emmys when director Glenn Weiss, who had just won the Emmy for helming the Oscars, surprised the Microsoft Theater audience by proposing to his girlfriend.

This year, Done+Dusted and Don Mischer Prods., which are jointly producing the Emmys for Fox on Sept. 22, are hoping for a few more Glenn Weiss-like elements. Without a host to create any watercooler moments, it will be up to the show’s winners to provide a bigger share of the surprises that people will be talking about on social media.

“The moment that can make or break these kinds of shows, that make them memorable, are often things producers have absolutely no control over,” Mischer says. “Are there surprise wins? Are there underdogs that win? Is there someone who’s been nominated dozens of times who hasn’t won and finally wins? These all carry more emotional freight. We don’t have any idea who’s going to win until the envelope is opened, and we have no control over what a winner will say. So if a winner gets up there and makes an eloquent, emotional speech about what this moment means to them, that’s not something we can produce or write.”

Without a host, Mischer and Carrington say there will at least be extra time to let winners create those moments. Getting rid of a full monologue and other host routines will save nearly 20 minutes that can be applied to other elements — including, most importantly, ending the show on time. 

“When you go past 11, I don’t care who’s on that stage or what they’re doing, people turn you off,” Mischer says. “That really affects the overall ratings and success of the show. We have to keep that in mind.”

The Emmys’ biggest problem is the sheer number of kudos that need to be televised: 27, more than any other major awards show. The Television Academy previously floated the idea of handing out some of those awards before the ceremony or during commercial breaks (aiming to edit down acceptance speeches and air them tape-delayed during the ceremony), but the various guilds have protested those attempts. “It’s not easy — I’ll be honest,” Mischer says of balancing the network’s and TV Academy’s needs, which are often contradictory.

Without a host, the show is expected to jump immediately into the awards, and rely on the night’s presenters to “do more than a little bit of patter and then throw to a nominations package,” Carrington says. “We had a discussion very early about getting into the awards as quickly as possible. You have a host, and it can be a bit hit or miss. It’s a lot of time before you give out the first award, and the awards are what we’re there for. We’re there to celebrate the content and the people who make it. We made a conscious effort to focus on that.”