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well one of the byproducts of the Hollywood actors and writer strikes have been the postponing of award shows
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pleasure to be joined right now by Adam sharp who's president and CEO of the
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National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences which administers the Daytime Emmy Awards uh which were postponed uh
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in part due to the strikes Adam great to have you with us thanks very much for your time today of course thank you for
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having me so take us through what this process has been like the last couple of months because I would imagine you you
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you had a plan for a while and then obviously you had to think about putting it off and then now we get the strike
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and it's it's really kind of been probably quite the mess the last couple
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of months well it it's funny after a few years of pandemic we entered this year saying
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great we could finally get back to normal and I think we spoke a little too soon
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um I I think that it it's definitely been a a fresh challenge I think the pandemic certainly gave us a bit of the
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muscle memory for flexibility and for having a lot of plan B's C's all the way
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down to plan Z's and thinking about different what-ifs and uh a lot of our meetings have said you know
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this this reminds us a lot of March of 2020 um where we weren't sure quite yet that
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things were completely off it was okay we'll move it a month we'll move it a
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couple of weeks we'll start holding a few future dates for when this All Passes
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um 2021 was actually probably the easiest of the pandemic years because we went into the year knowing we weren't
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doing any shows it was just a simple binary yeah no in-person events uh but 2020 was still sliding things around
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playing it by ear 2022 was the same thing in reverse and so we had a bit of practice uh obviously different
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circumstances but a lot of the Tactical reactions to that wound up being the same and so for the daytime Emmys we
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were keeping a close eye on each of the guilds certainly this spring we had three guilds in place sag-aftra wga and
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the Director's Guild the directors did reach a deal with the ampdp and so that
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came off the table but the other two are out on strike and so that keeps this uh
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up in limbo for the time being so in terms of the Daytime Emmy Awards is one of the strikes more important to going
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ahead with the Daytime Emmy Awards and the other or would you like to see them both kind of solved and off the books
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and then move forward we would like to see both of them sold our our intent is that we will not move
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forward with the daytime Emmys as long as either Guild is out on strike as a technical matter a legal matter
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um the wga strike is the more limiting and part of that is because the daytime Emmys
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um are a little bit different than perhaps some other award shows in that number one all award shows operate under
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a different contract than the SAG after contract that is currently being struck so technically award shows
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themselves are not struck you can still produce an award show um under the uh current sag-aftra regime
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that is not necessarily true under the wga strike so right now the ability to even produce a show is more restricted
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in technical terms by the wga strike than by the actor strike now where it gets more complicated is the ability of
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people to participate in the event uh yeah the actors for the prime time Emmys for example
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that announced this morning that they are postponing to January those actors working on Prime Time shows
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are on strike and therefore they cannot go out and promote those shows so even if you did have a prime time Emmy show
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they wouldn't be allowed to go to it the stars of daytime soaps on the other
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hand they are on under a different contract so they're still working they're not on strike they could
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technically promote it but a lot of them have other gigs at the same time supplement their income and those jobs
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are under strike and so it gets very blurry there and I I think that we do not want to be in any situation where we
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are putting our members many of whom we share with the Guild in a conflicted position where they're coming to this
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event and wondering wait am I crossing a picket line or am I not am I violating some some rule here this is a night to
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celebrate achievement in the craft to celebrate the community and no one should be there feeling
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uncomfortable uh about it and so we're not going to go there by a threading the needle of legal
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technicality yeah and so for all intents and purposes as long as either Guild is
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out the daytime Emmys are remaining postponed well you mentioned obviously the impact from the pandemic on the
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award shows the last couple of years and I would think that that really has started that started the process of you
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having to rethink your mindset about the potential impacts and events that could
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prevent an award show from going on and maybe to a degree it's a little bit of a
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different mindset than pre-pandemic you know thinking about things like the facility the the hotel where you're
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going to do the show that relationship probably you have to write in probably different language
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than maybe you did pre-pandemic I I think that every year the Force Major paragraph of these contracts gets
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a lot more creative and every year you realize there's something else you forgot you know next
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year we'll be writing in it's raining frogs the rivers are boiling yeah uh I I
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think though it it both these experiences have certainly been a stark reminder though of
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what our business is um I I joked I I became CEO only about a year before the pandemic
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and so a lot of friends had asked me at the height of pandemic you know how's
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how's the job going and I said well it's been an interesting time to lead a large
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public Gatherings business and I think part of that is because uh so much Focus had been on the ceremonies
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um and what we began to to realize during that period is that no the ceremonies were simply an expression uh
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of of the Core Business The Core Business was ultimately that mission statement that's been the
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mission statement for years which is to Foster and recognize excellence and that ceremony
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was one expression of that but it's not the only way to to express that ultimately the actual judging of the
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competitions the recognition with an Emmy Award um the celebration of achievement in
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that regard um that's the coin of the realm and you can toast with champagne you can
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have dinner with your friends you can go up on on stage and and celebrate it but that's all all window dressing it
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heightens it but it's not not core and and so I think each of these experiences
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as we look to try to find a silver lining in them it's that it served to be a strong reminder to to us and our
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community what is the core of our our business and not to be distracted by the things that may wind up being
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the biggest drivers of time and expense and energy and instead focus on what really is the
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core value proposition the driver of what we do and what keeps that relationship going with our community
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what was it that you were most looking forward to with with this year's show
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and element a celebration what was it it was the 50th anniversary it was the golden anniversary so it was a special
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year half a century of daytime Emmys we were going to be celebrating two icons with lifetime achievement awards Susan
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Lucci and Maury Povich uh Susan Lucci of course uh famously uh the longest running nominee without winning until
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the streak was broken um uh for her role as Erica Kane on All My Children Maury Povich the longest
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running daytime talk show host in history that being a whole career Arc after already having uh broken uh modes
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uh molds on the entertainment news side and and so forth um those I think are two big parts of
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the shows that we're really excited uh to to move forward on um we're going to look back a bit over the
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the 50 years hopefully we'll still be able to to do that this year um if not if if the strikes persist well
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into next year and it winds up becoming some sort of hybrid 50th and 51st we'll
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we'll still do that celebration yeah um but uh but yeah I think those were the highlights we were planning for I
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read that the issue of transparency is also one that is as talked about a lot in regards to the award show and take us
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into a little bit about why that component is so important right now well at the end of the day
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and we we talked earlier about that Emmy statue over my shoulder you know what separates us from
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the trophy company down the street selling Little League trophies uh is not the value of
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the zinc and gold that goes into the statue itself it is the value that we place on it
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through the Integrity of the brand and the process the reason networks and Studios will spend
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thousands of dollars on entering the competition on attending the ceremonies on celebrating and promoting when they
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are nominated and and they win is because they have belief in the Integrity of the process that
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adjudicated that that piece of content truly was the most outstanding in its field in its
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craft in that television year and at a time when I think across Society faith in institutions
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is probably at a generational low it puts even more pressure on organizations like ours I think to be
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transparent and show the homework in order to maintain that trust in the process to maintain that faith that the
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Integrity is there that it is a fair process that if something is truly being named the best it is getting there
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through an equitable adjudication and not through some gamesmanship or favoritism well
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well Adam we certainly look forward to uh the Daytime Emmy Awards when they occur at some point and get these
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strikes all put back to uh pushed away uh and everybody can get back to work thanks very much for giving us a few
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moments today thank you Adam sharp president and CEO of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences