New media will get Emmy of their own

Calling all makers of mobisodes, podcasts and video blogs: For the first time, original content being produced for platforms such as computers, cellphones and BlackBerry devices will be eligible for an Emmy award.

The New York-based National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences will announce today that it is creating an award for Outstanding Achievement in Content for Non-Traditional Delivery Platforms -- and the first one will be handed out at the 33rd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards on April 28, airing on ABC.

It will be the first time that content produced for new platforms will be honored with the traditional television award -- a sign of how rapidly the media landscape is changing and the revolution in TV presentation and programming that the industry is just starting to comprehend.

The award will recognize excellence in entertainment programming created specifically for viewing online or via cellphone, Ipod or video-on-demand. (In other words, no repackaged episodes of “Desperate Housewives.”)

Peter Price, president of the television academy, said the organization decided to create the new category after watching the speed with which content has been migrating to new platforms.

“The timeline of going from our analog world to the digital world has collapsed into months rather than years,” Price said. “The question is, ‘How do we as an academy respond to that?’ ”

Independent content producers welcomed the announcement, calling it a sign of how the industry is embracing the new technology.

“Mobile media has arrived -- in a limo,” said Frank Chindamo, president of Fun Little Movies, a Los Angeles-based company that produces comedic sketches for mobile phone viewing.

“The real question is, ‘How is the public going to take to this?’ ” he added, saying that a relatively small number of consumers have video-enabled devices.

The Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, an affiliated organization that presents the general Emmy Awards for prime-time programming, has not decided whether to incorporate a new media category into its fall awards ceremony.

But the national academy, which presents the awards for news, documentaries, business, sports and daytime programs, decided to launch a category on its own.

Officials originally planned to hand out the award for the first time in May 2006 at the annual Sports Emmy Awards to recognize the best sports-related new media program. Entertainment content for new media wasn’t going to be judged until the 2007 Daytime Emmy presentations.

But shortly after publicizing the new category last month, academy officials were flooded with inquires from content producers about submissions. Within days, the new award was generating 850,000 hits on Google, Price said.

“We realized there was something much larger and more immediate going on,” he said.

In response, the academy decided last week to reopen the entry period for the 2006 Daytime Emmy competition to take submissions for the new media award.

The category is open to all entertainment video -- not just soap operas, game shows and talk shows that traditionally air during the day.

Anyone in the world can enter, but submissions must be produced for distribution in the U.S. and must be available for viewing in at least 50% of the national market. Entertainment video content distributed from Jan. 1, 2005, to March 1, 2006, will be eligible for consideration. The category is open to video blogs, website programs, mobisodes (short episodes made for viewing on phones), video-on-demand or other content delivered digitally or on wireless devices.

Though the academy plans to offer only one category at each awards ceremony to recognize new media, officials said the competition could expand based on the response in its first year.

“One way to do it would be to have a whole mirror world of every category we have,” Price said. “But I think the Emmys go on long enough as it is.”