CATEGORICALLY SPEAKING, IS MORE BECOMING LESS?

Well, it’s over. Winners in 31 categories of prime-time TV now are clutching their 1986-model Emmys. That’s in addition to awards made off-camera Sept. 6 in another 40 categories from children’s programs to “hair styling for a miniseries or a special.”

Seventy-one categories may seem a lot of awarding--particularly when one considers that this year’s Oscar ceremonies made do with 23 and Broadway’s Tony show got by with 21, figures that include craft awards as well as honors for writing, directing and acting.

But veteran Broadway producer Alexander H. Cohen, whose annual Tony telecast once won an Emmy, disputes those cynics who contend that so many Emmys are awarded nowadays that it almost seems anyone in TV who shows up for work on time will get the medium’s top honor.

“I think that’s a bum rap,” he said. “The academy seems to me to operate meticulously,” he added, referring to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences that administers the awards.

Television and the variety of its program wares have grown considerably since the medium’s early black-and-white days, he said, and the academy reflects this in what he called its “well-defined” range of award categories.

Executive producer of the Emmy Awards telecasts last year and in 1978, Cohen worked in the same capacity Sunday night. He also has produced Broadway’s acclaimed Tony telecasts for 20 consecutive years, but said this year’s Tony show was his finale as the event’s producer.

(His next project will be for the stage, a mega-musical called “The Best of Broadway.” Featuring songs from what he calls “the best American musicals of the 20th Century,” he plans to give it a tryout run in Los Angeles in July, he said.)

Interviewed before Sunday’s Emmy broadcast on NBC from the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, Cohen admitted to some bewilderment about two new categories added to this year’s ceremonies--Emmys for best “guest performers” in a comedy series and a drama series.

He wasn’t complaining, he emphasized. “I’m just puzzling over it,” he added, later calling the guest award “a very interesting category.”

He was asked why not--in the matter of major and supporting acting honors--simply give awards for best performances by an actor and actress, regardless of whether the performances were in a drama series, a comedy series, a miniseries or a special, as now is the case?

“Well, you could argue that,” Cohen said. “But what I would do” he said, is that instead of dropping categories, “I would drop sex.” He paused, then laughed. “Let me put that differently: I would drop gender.”

In other words, the awards would be made for the best major or supporting performances in various categories, regardless of the sex of the nominated thespians.

Trimming awards categories, Cohen said, is “very difficult. The only way to do that is, yes, go for best performer and the stratifying of comedy, drama, miniseries, etc.

“But this is such a big industry with so much product that when one thinks that there are only 31 (on-air) awards . . . then it’s astonishing to me.”