Emmy Show Seeks to Avoid Viewer Fatigue

And the winner is ... the weary awards show viewer.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, stunned last year by the worst ratings performance for the Emmys since 1990, will ask some winners this year to pre-tape their acceptance speeches -- and to take less time to say “thank you.”

Under a resolution approved this week, the academy’s board of governors will ask producers of this year’s Sept. 18 ceremony to speed up the three-hour show by trimming speeches and travel time to the stage in certain award categories -- most of which involve off-camera work.

The academy’s attempt to streamline the show comes after last year’s precipitous 22% drop in viewership from 2003. The ABC telecast averaged 14 million viewers.

Other award shows -- including the Academy Awards, the Grammys, the People’s Choice Awards and the American Music Awards -- also have seen their viewership erode. Even the Oscars’ attempts to appeal to younger viewers by having Chris Rock play host didn’t help -- the ratings slipped 5% from the 2004 broadcast.

The TV academy’s move was viewed as something of a victory for the writers and directors guilds, which had resisted a proposal that the board of governors move 14 of the prime-time awards to the non-televised Creative Arts Emmys. They contended it would marginalize their work.

The guilds’ protest culminated in a letter to the academy by Directors Guild of America President Michael Apted and Writers Guild of America, West, President Daniel Petrie Jr.

“We are absolutely thrilled that common sense has prevailed,” Apted said Wednesday. “The academy is keeping its core responsibility to honor good work on television.”

In order to telecast all 27 Emmy categories -- the most presented during a televised awards show -- the guilds and the academy agreed to have acceptance speeches taped in advance by winners in such categories as best directing and best writing.

The producer of the Emmy Awards and CBS, which is airing this year’s telecast, will decide how the taped interviews will be conducted.

Dick Askin, chairman and chief executive of the television academy, said in a statement that other changes would include trimming back or eliminating non-award elements of the telecast, based on discussions with CBS.

“We set a course, which we believe will result in a new and invigorated Emmy Awards telecast,” Askin said. “There is still much to do but I am confident we have made a giant first step in reshaping an event that will continue to honor excellence but will be much better paced and more compelling and entertaining for the television viewer.”

In an interview, Askin said advertising revenue was not part of the discussion in making these changes.

But it’s likely to be of some concern to CBS. Advertisers were said to have paid about $550,000 for each 30-second spot during last year’s Emmy telecast.