TV Academy May Revise Award Entry Process : * Emmys: After receiving complaints from members, the organization is trying to devise new ways of letting them know deadlines are nearing.

In the wake of complaints from members claiming that they did not receive entry forms for this year’s Emmy Awards, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is considering revising the way it seeks entrants.

Each year, according to John Leverence, the academy’s awards director, the organization hears from two to three dozen would-be entrants who say they never received entry forms and did not know that the deadline had passed.

To combat the problem, the academy is trying to devise new ways of letting members know that deadlines are approaching, Leverence said.

The organization knows it needs to improve, he said, because it has “constant disappointments” when members cannot enter.

So far, he said, the academy is considering a plan to send members a series of reminder notices throughout the winter and spring, instead of the single reminder that is currently sent.

And, to ward against lawsuits by members who don’t receive forms, the academy might herald the approach of submission deadlines through legal notices in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, the industry’s two major trade publications, Leverence said. The academy already submits regular advertisements about the deadlines to the trades.

The academy has rejected a proposal by a sound studio, Matrix Alliance Inc., to set up a committee to hear grievances from members who say they were not notified.

The search for new ways to notify members about the deadlines comes in the wake of angry contentions by Matrix that it did not receive entry forms for the 1990 competition.

“The Emmys are the most coveted award in the television industry,” said Craig Darian, president and part owner of Matrix, which mixed sound for the TNT cable film “Chernobyl.” There is no reason that the company would have missed the deadlines if it had received proper information, he added.

Darian said that when he learned that the deadline for entries had passed, he petitioned the academy to accept a supplemental ballot from his company. But despite intimations that Matrix might sue to be included, the academy refused.

“Were we in a situation to go forward to provide ballot addenda, we would, but we’re not,” Leverence said. The academy is bound by its own rules, which say that once deadlines for a contest have passed, there is no recourse, Leverence said.

He said that while he believes members when they say they were not notified about the deadlines, he also believes that some would-be entrants are so busy working on television projects that they do not always open their mail from the academy.

Darian has asked that, in the future, the academy set up an impartial committee to hear grievances such as his. He said that the ruling on his company’s belated entry was made by academy officials, two of whom--president Leo Chalukian and sound governor Curt Behlmer--are involved in competing Ryder Sound Services.

“There was no objective body ready and willing to field our complaint and deal with it,” Darian said. “To the extent that they assembled the body, it was composed of two members who are direct competitors of ours.”

But Leverence said that such a committee is not necessary. The academy’s refusal to allow late entries, he said, was not made at the discretion of its officers, but was its only alternative given the timing of events and the contest rules.

“If the ship has sailed, the ship has sailed,” Leverence said. “There’s not much we can do at that stage of the game.”