Emmy Question
LA Guy might write something more knowledgeable about the Emmy's but I had a quick question- How good have they been a predicting good or enduringly popular TV- i.e. how many Emmy winners are reshown in syndication (or, I guess, purchased as DVDs). This award show has seemed almost as nebulous as the Grammy's - they seem to make up new categories each and then proceed to mis-categorize nominees. I have a fairly good memory of Oscar winners though I don't see that many movies but I can't remember any Emmy -winners and I watch a lot of TV.
Is TV more ephemeral- M*A*S*H and Hill Street Blues tripped over awards in their day, but I haven't seen much of them on my 157 channels or video on demand menus.
How well do the Emmy winners from 30 years ago stack up vs. Oscar, Grammy, Tony and Booker/National Book Awards. Enquiring minds want to know.
posted by New England Guy @ 8:28 AM
3 Comments:
I'm a little confused by this post. The Emmys give awards to the most respected shows of their day--sometimes good choices, sometimes bad.
But as to "enduringly popular"? Shows that were respected, but also not respected (yet popular), still live on in syndication and DVDs. But when you seem to exclude M*A*S*H--perhaps the most syndicated show in the history of television--from that group, I don't know what to say.
I apologize for the confusion and poor diction - I guess I am asking whether the Emmy's actually matter in the long run and tried to measure it in terms of what we think of the past choices today and I was using current syndication and DVD sales as a measure. I was wondering whether any of these awards were better than others at picking long-time favorites orclassics.
While I agree M*A*S*H was tremendously popular and re-runs seem to run constantly in syndication throughout my youth and early adulthood (sometimes different seasons of the series were running on competing local stations in the 4-7 pm slot)- I don't see it much today even with so many more channels- did we get sick of it? For some reason, I keep running across Good Times ("Dyn-O-Mite!") in the cable line-up so some 70s shows are living on but I agree not many.
(BTW- I just bought the DVD for the first 26 episodes of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman-odd looking people with bad teeth portraying working class characters with plenty of long silences in the dialog-its strangely engaging)
Some Oscar Winners get shown every year or are always in the video store (OK maybe Netflix and On Demand are ruining that analogy), some book award winners are always in stock, do Emmy-winners live on too or is the effect just a flash in the pan??
The Emmys are nice but don't matter too much to people outside the TV industry in the long run.
As to M*A*S*H, it's still shown plenty--a lot more than Good Times, that I guarantee. You must not be getting the right channels. But then, I question your whole thesis.
TV shows are popular in their first run, and then, if they're big enough, have a nice run in syndication (where the real money is made, since there are no new costs). Most shows, after a few years of post-prime time life, either stop getting shown a lot, or get some sort of deal where one channel (like TVLand) has exclusive rights and probably doesn't have to pay too much. A few are tremendously popular--I Love Lucy, M*A*S*H, Seinfeld (it would seem)--and have much longer, wider runs in general syndication.
But it's the way of almost all popular entertainment to fall by the wayside. Sure, Lucy and The Honeymooners and Dick Van Dyke and M*A*S*H and even Seinfeld are fondly remembered by millions, but esch year that passes tends to mean less who remember it and more who concentrate on newer shows.
The same goes for movies. If you look at what people rent of buy on DVD, it's mostly the recent stuff. If you watch what people pay extra for on premium cable, same thing. There are plenty of movie classics from 40 or 70 years ago, but they're watched less and less--in fact, pretty much only by big movie fans, not just general movie fans.
Because there are enough movie fans and TV fans, it's worth having these older titles on DVD. (And easier access has helped spread older material, since they lower the investment to see them.) But in the long run, very little of what's highly popular in its day will be well-remembered.
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