In a move that reflects the television industry's growing embrace of the Internet, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is making programming delivered over broadband eligible for its Emmy Awards beginning in 2007.
The academy's board of governors has approved a change in its bylaws, establishing broadband as a recognized distribution center for television along with broadcast, cable and satellite. Broadband video content is distributed through high-speed Internet service to computers and sometimes mobile phones and hand-held devices.
"The implications, in my mind, are pretty huge," said Brian Seth Hurst, a member of the board who has led efforts to recognize "new" media programming at the academy. "It now means that Mark Burnett's 'Gold Rush!' on AOL could be entered into competition against 'Survivor.' "
Academy officials said this week that they haven't worked out the details but that drama series, reality shows, sitcoms and other video programs designed specifically for websites may seek to compete in all 27 prime-time categories.
Although the bylaw change was approved about a month ago, the academy didn't publicize it until this week, after the 2006 Emmy nominees were announced. "We didn't want to confuse entrants," Hurst said.
The North Hollywood-based television academy and its counterpart in New York, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which hands out Emmys for daytime, news and sports programming, have rushed to embrace new media with a new crop of awards.
The New York academy will award its first emerging-media Emmy for news and documentary programming in September, then will hand out more Emmys for business and financial reporting on new-media platforms later this year, said Cheryl Daly, the academy's communications director. Another Emmy for public and community service programming in emerging media is soon to come.
The North Hollywood-based academy, meanwhile, has a separate set of Emmy Awards for interactive television -- programming that encourages viewer participation, such as online chats and social networking, as well as additional content, such as graphics or photographs. Finalists were announced Monday.
Neither academy sees competition brewing -- nor a proliferation of awards -- but Hurst, co-governor of the local academy's interactive-media peer group, acknowledges there is confusion with several new-media Emmys now available. As more video content is produced for the Internet, he said, both television academies are responding.
