TV Academy President Maury McIntyre Talks Emmy Noms, Legacy Award, How Multiple Late-Night Shows Might Win & Its…

The nominations for the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards are out and Television Academy president and CEO Maury McIntyre is excited ahead of the show in September.

It was a big day for shows such as Hacks, The Pitt, Widow’s Bay, Pluribus and Beef, and McIntyre was pleased with the variety of nominations.

In an interview with Deadline, McIntyre discussed host Mariska Hargitay, its upcoming Legacy Award, what will happen if more than one late-night host wins on the night, how the Emmys are increasingly including YouTube creators in its categories, where the Academy is in terms of its next TV rights deal and whether Widow’s Bay is really a comedy.

DEADLINE: What are your takeaways from the Emmy nominations this morning?

MAURY MCINTYRE: We’re always excited about nominations morning. It’s always a thrill to be able to recognize the great work that’s gone on over the course of the past year; we always are surprised by a lot of the recognition, and we’re also happy when we see things that people are really beloved. I think one of the things that we were really happy with this year was just kind of the real variety in the storytelling, when you look at kind of the programs and just the breadth of the programs that are nominated, you’ve got your period pieces, you’ve got your fantasy pieces, you get your thrillers, you’ve got your heartwarming little intimate family-type shows, so it’s really interesting to see that television’s being made about lots of different subjects and excellence in pretty much all of it.

DEADLINE: There were plenty of nominations for new shows like Widow’s Bay, hit shows ending like Hacks and returners like The Pitt.

MCINTYRE: I think it’s great that you always do have the newcomers coming in, and some of them really hit it big, Pluribus and Widow’s Bay are certainly huge coming out. You’ve got some of the ones that have been around for a while, coming back. I think you can see that on the reality competition side, where Dancing with the Stars had a really big season this year and came back after 10 years, which is fantastic to see.

DEADLINE: Is Widow’s Bay a comedy? You got asked that question for years about The Bear.

MCINTYRE: We certainly have that conversation a lot. I thought Widow’s Bay was hysterical. I think that comedy is always going to be a hard one. I think that in many ways we try to defer to the creator, because you know the creator has created something, and they feel that they know what they have created. Certainly, I’m not one that wants to go to a writer and tell them it wasn’t funny, so I think that in that regard we are generally going to say, ‘If you feel you wrote a comedy, we’re going to trust this comedy, and then trust that the viewers and the voters are then going to decide on that’. If they vote for it in the comedy category, well, then they must have thought it was a comedy too. On Widow’s Bay, I actually haven’t heard anyone complain to me about that one, just because I think it is so humorous on so many levels, even with the dark horror. Horror is a really great one to laugh at. I think Sam Raimi found that with Evil Dead.

RELATED: ‘Widow’s Bay’ Enters The Emmy Conversation With 19 Nominations

DEADLINE: Mariska Hargitay is hosting this year’s Emmys and she’s the first woman to do so in 15 years.

MCINTYRE: We were so thrilled, actually, when NBC came to us with Mariska. A lot of people kind of had the same reaction I think we did at first, that it was an interesting choice, because everyone’s expecting it to be a comedian or a late-night host or something like that. But she is so loved, both by her audience and fans, and the entire community. Most of those people who just got a nomination today have probably been arrested by her at some point on that show. The outpouring of those friendships on social media yesterday, you could see how many people were excited for her. She’s had such a great year, too. I mean, she just did a Broadway debut, taking over for Daniel Radcliffe. She herself is nominated at least three times this year [for] her documentary [My Mom Jayne].

It’s a big year for her, and we’re really excited about. 15 years we haven’t had a woman and we needed that desperately. I was talking about this for years. I don’t think anyone knows what this show is going to be, and that to me is exciting. You get a stand-up comedian, you’re going to go, okay, they’re going to do a bit, and then we’ll do some other stuff. This has got a blank slate. Mariska is excited about it. She’s already got lots of ideas she’s been talking about with the production company, but I don’t think anybody in the industry can say I know what this show will look like, so you’ve got to tune in to watch it. No,

DEADLINE: Is NBC going to lean into the fact that it’s the company’s 100th anniversary?

MCINTYRE: I mean, we’ve just started those conversations. Clearly, it is their 100th, so we expect we’re going to be celebrating some of that on the show, but the Emmys is also a celebration of all of television and the whole year of television, so we want to make sure that we balance that. But yes, it is a big milestone for them. We want to celebrate that with them, and I’m sure we’ll see that on the show too.

DEADLINE: Talking of classic television, what are the plans for the Legacy Award?

MCINTYRE: We’re hoping to announce it sometime over the next month, so right now it’s about finalizing who it’s going to, and then figuring out where it’s actually going to be given out, and then I think we’ll be ready to talk about it. We haven’t figured out which ceremony it’s going to go into.

DEADLINE: You merged the Talk and Variety categories this year, has that gone how you expected it to?

MCINTYRE: I think we are all hopeful that we’ll see a resurgence in the variety category, that we’ll see more types of programming like that. I think right now we’re not necessarily seeing that, so absolutely we had to do something. Once you get to a category that only has a couple of submissions, it doesn’t make sense to have that category. I think we were happy that it’s kind of expected, just because, again, we’re going to see how it goes. Clearly, there will be a shake up next year, no matter what, because it’s the last year for Colbert, and clearly he got a lot of nominations this year because of that. He won’t be in the mix next year, so how will this category look as we evolve? We’re actually seeing a big resurgence of some of this stuff on independent creators.

DEADLINE: Have you worked out what it will look like if more than one of these shows wins?

MCINTYRE: It is a pretty high bar to clear to get 90% yes votes, but you know it is not unreasonable. It could happen. We are planning for it just in case, but we’ll see what happens. I think for us, one of the things that we had heard from the community, loud and clear, was these are such disparate shows, it’s hard sometimes to compare them, like what is Saturday Night Live, how is that really the same as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert? That’s why this idea of the area award made more sense. We’ll see what happens, but yes, it is absolutely true that if, if everybody says that every single one of their shows deserves the Emmy, then every single one of their shows could get an Emmy.

DEADLINE: So, potentially we could see John Oliver and Jimmy Kimmel on stage giving thank you speeches?

MCINTYRE: Yes, we would have to, yeah, I mean, we wouldn’t even know it until the night.

DEADLINE: That would be great for fans of chaos but I’m not sure whether the production team would enjoy it quite as much.

MCINTYRE: I think the production team might freak if they hear it’s a three way tie.

DEADLINE: YouTube helped its creators at a bigger level this year. Do you expect some of those creators to compete in future?

MCINTYRE: Subway Takes, which is basically a talk show, more shorter form, got a nomination, and it’s a YouTube show, so I think we’re seeing a lot more of that in that independent creator space, and so that’s great, because again, I think that will hopefully revitalize the variety industry in that regard.

DEADLINE: Have there been conversations about introducing a category for content creators?

MCINTYRE: We absolutely have had conversations about about how we ensure the Academy is being inclusive and welcoming to the independent creator community. Again, these are creators who are operating like studios, many of them churning out episode after episode and garnering a lot of views. We actually did make a couple of changes this year in some of our categories to ensure there was more of an openness to it, specifically in the short form category. This is the first year we actually tracked in the short form categories original versus derivative, so in that short form comedy, you were getting a lot of [shows like] Desi Lydic Foxsplains, which is great, we love Desi, and that got nominated, but that was kind of drowning out some of this newer stuff, because, of course, people knew that more. So, we now actually have three originals in that category, Randy Rainbow, who has been nominated before, Bad Thoughts, which is a Netflix short form, and then Subway Takes, so we do think that is a little more opening us up to this original content.

It is a proportional nomination for original versus derivative, so as the submissions come in, and this year it was actually 60% original versus 40% derivative. So, that’s what the nominations look like. There are three that are wholly original, they’re not based off of anything else. Then two were the derivative stuff, like Colbert Before Air and Desi Lydic Foxsplains and then the other three were original, they’re not based off of anything else. We did the same thing on the reality side, we just didn’t have as many originals on the reality side, and I think that was just because people weren’t aware of that.

To your question, yes, we are looking at the independent creator community and looking to make sure that we are being a welcome space and are recognizing and honoring some of that work.

DEADLINE: Another constant topic is whether you’d increase the number of nominations in the Outstanding Limited Series or Anthology category to bring it in line with drama and comedy. Will you?

MCINTYRE: Yeah, we talk about it a lot. We always talk about just how many nominations there are. Period. We know there’s always going to be great work that doesn’t get recognized that probably should at some point. It’s harder right now to have conversations about expanding noms, as we’ve seen a shrinkage in terms of the amount of production and number of submissions. I think hopefully we’ll start to see that turn around again. We’ll start seeing people invest more, but we were at our heyday in 2022 I think, where we had just so many submissions, and we didn’t increase them. Now that we have so many [fewer] than we had then, it doesn’t make as much sense. The whole point of doing drama and comedy, I think, is because there are just so many more of them. In terms of the limited series, it keeps expanding and attracting sometimes, so it’s harder to say clearly. Some of those are the buzzier shows, and that’s why I think we hear a lot about it, but again, it’s going to be something we’re going to keep talking about throughout the years.

DEADLINE: You’re in the middle of negotiations for the next TV rights deal. What’s the latest? Do you expect the Emmys to remain on a wheel with ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC or maybe we’ll see a change in how the Emmys are viewed?

MCINTYRE: I can’t really talk about what’s going on in the negotiations. I can certainly tell you that I wish it had been done last year. I can promise you we will announce as soon as we have something. Other than that, right now I have to just let the talks play out.

DEADLINE: You are a fan of the simulcast approach with multiple broadcasters airing it at the same time, right?

MCINTYRE: I mean, how could I not be? I am a fan of the idea that a simulcast could possibly go over all networks. The Emmys should be everywhere. I can’t say my opinion is going to necessarily sway anybody. I would say that Bill Kramer would probably say the same thing about the Oscars.

DEADLINE: Of course, but he’s also got a shiny new deal with YouTube. The pressure’s on…

MCINTYRE Yep, we’ll see. He’s got a couple years to get to that, though.

DEADLINE: You had a boost in the ratings last year on CBS. How can you keep that momentum going?

MCINTYRE: We’re always excited when that happens, and you know it’s sometimes hard to know clearly. I think the marriage of CBS and Nate Bargatze was a really good marriage. He was good for their particular audience, and I think he brought in an audience of people who might not necessarily have tuned in. I think for us that’s one of the reasons we were so excited about Mariska. She’s kind of got a built-in audience on NBC already, we’re already seeing those people saying they’re going to tune in now, because it’s her. That’s one thing that we’re excited about. I think again we actually have a really phenomenal set of nominations that have a lot of fans too, that will help.

We’re just getting started right now with the presenters, and I think we’ll have a fantastic array of presenters that will draw audience. It’s also great to be on NBC, because they’re just such a fantastic partner. They certainly do a lot of synergies across their entire division, NBC and Universal, and all of their other channels, so that’s always a positive too, because you get all of these different spokes of the corporation pushing to the show. We’re really excited to see what happens.