A delayed and nostalgic Emmy Awards honors television’s recent and distant past

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Considering the circumstances, it’s a bit of a miracle that the 75th Emmy Awards weren’t a total slog.

Originally scheduled for September but delayed by the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes, Monday night’s Emmys served as a belated celebration of television’s best.

The awards themselves brought few surprises. Top honors went to HBO’s “Succession,” Netflix’s “Beef” and FX/Hulu’s “The Bear” — the first season, mind you, which aired (checks Google) in June 2022. This awards show was, if nothing else, a dream for procrastinators.

Seriously, the eligibility period for the postponed Emmys was so long ago that the winner for variety special (live), “Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium,” aired on the last day of Walt Disney’s Co.’s Bob Chapek era. John’s win, by the way, made him an EGOT, though the pop music icon wasn’t there to accept his Emmy.

The producers took pains to honor television’s past, both recent and distant, with cast reunions of “Cheers” and “Martin,” often using set re-creations. As is always the case, some of the bits worked, others didn’t. Watching it was a little like walking through a hall of living dioramas at a TV history museum. And here on the left, we have Dr. Melfi’s office from “The Sopranos.”

Anthony Anderson’s turn as host imbued the show with the energy of a welcoming, un-fussy variety show. The “Black-ish” actor eschewed forced and mean-spirited stand-up routines in favor of musical numbers and cute banter with his mom, who was in the audience for a recurring gag to tell honorees to wrap up their speeches in lieu of an orchestra playing walk-off music.

Having Christina Applegate, who revealed her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2021, come out to the stage for a standing ovation was a classy moment. So was having “The Jeffersons” actor Marla Gibbs, 92, present alongside “Abbott Elementary’s” creator-star Quinta Brunson.

The speeches were mostly tight and focused, perhaps overly so.

The plaudits themselves were deserved, if predictable. Of course “Succession” was going to dominate the drama categories (Jesse Armstrong’s Roy family saga walked away with six statuettes Monday night). Suspense wasn’t really the point. It was an opportunity to say goodbye to a show beloved by many, but especially by industry insiders, and the Emmys took it. “Beef” had a big night in the limited or anthology series categories, while “The Bear” scored six awards, including comedy series.

HBO was a powerful presence. Combined with the nods for its sister streaming service Max, Warner Bros. Discovery-owned HBO had a total of 127 nominations and 31 wins, including Creative Arts Emmys announced earlier this month. HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” won for scripted variety series and writing for a variety series. Jennifer Coolidge won supporting actress (drama) for her swan song/dive in “White Lotus.”

The nominations were a reflection of the prestige TV era, primarily recognizing shows on pay cable channels and streaming services.

Conspicuously absent was representation from broadcast television, other than Brunson winning lead actress (comedy) for ABC’s wholesome “Abbott Elementary,” a reminder of how long viewers have had to wait for a new season due to the labor dispute. On the plus side, Brunson’s win served as a well-timed ad for Season 3, debuting next month.

Of course, TV’s most popular scripted show, “Yellowstone,” and its spinoff, “1923,” weren’t even nominated.

But overall, by looking back at television’s greats, the Emmys put on a solid show to take the TV industry out of a year of strikes and toward whatever the post-Peak TV era brings.

Stuff we wrote

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Peacock stream of NFL playoff game sets record and provides a glimpse of the future. The 26-7 win by the Kansas City Chiefs over the Miami Dolphins on Saturday averaged 23 million viewers in the first NFL playoff game that was available only on streaming in most of the country.

SAG-AFTRA investigating Vincent Gallo’s alleged behavior during film auditions. The union is probing the casting process for the upcoming film “The Policeman” after multiple women reported star Vincent Gallo’s alleged conduct.

David Ellison’s Skydance explores possible merger with Paramount through National Amusements. Skydance Media is exploring an all-cash deal to acquire National Amusements, the company that owns the bulk of Paramount Global voting stock, as part of a deal to merge Skydance and Paramount.

Actors can start selling AI voice clones to game companies under this new deal. A new deal between the actors’ union and an AI startup opens the door for performers to make and license “clones” of their voices for video games and other digital projects.

The docket

• Talent agency A3 sells assets to Gersh as legal battle continues.
• Judge denies USC’s bid to obtain coroner photos of cinematographer in wrongful death case.

Talking Sundance

The Sundance Film Festival begins Thursday in Park City, Utah. Every year at the fest, there are some movies that pop and others that melt away like that perfect snowball. Remember “Cat Person?”

To quote Times awards columnist Glenn Whipp, “this is Sundance, so movies that sound promising can go sideways in a second.”

Last year’s big deals included the supernatural horror film “Talk to Me” (a major hit for A24), comedy “Theater Camp” (bought by Searchlight Pictures), “Fair Play” (picked up by Netflix), “Flora and Son” (nabbed by Apple) and “Magazine Dreams” (shelved by Searchlight after Jonathan Majors’ conviction).

So yeah, a lot can happen up in the mountains.

Last week I spoke with Ross Fremer, chief operating officer of talent management and content sales firm Cinetic Media, to discuss the state of play.

What’s your state of the union on Sundance and the indie film market?

Overall, I’m pretty upbeat about the market for a couple of reasons. It sort of feels like, in the last year, there’s been this tremendous refocus on what moves the needle to stimulate and retain engagement with audiences. And I know that sounds prosaic, but I honestly think that’s not how the market was really working in past cycles. Buyers were making purchases based upon how starry, how big, and even taking more risky bets on product.

I think buyers are going to be more tactical and making buys on what they think is going to move the needle for their constituencies. And that’s, I think, a really, really positive development in the marketplace.

With the strikes thinning out the 2024 film slate, will buyers have more of an appetite for indies?

It’s hard to tell because, honestly, it feels so obvious that the slack needs to be picked up in terms of product to fill the calendar, but I sort of feel like the marketplace for the release calendar will figure itself out. So yes, right now it looks a little barren and I’m sure people will be optimistic to pick up product, both fiction and docs, to fill slots.

There was a lack of buying appetite last year, and I think buyers are going to think twice about skipping over things that have legs that could carry through the year and they get into the awards cycle.

But that could also be not the case, right? It could be that buyers need a breather, and they won’t reenter the marketplace until they feel like they’ve got obvious opportunities to win and wait for Cannes or Berlin or later festivals to pick up stuff.

Every time there are predictions that the streamers and tech platforms will pull back, and they still end up making major acquisitions such as “Fair Play” (Netflix) and “Flora and Son” (Apple) last year.

I think Netflix leans in. I think they know better than anybody what works for their audience, and that gives them license to spend on things that are valuable to them — not what they’re worth to third parties, but what is valuable to Netflix, and that is a distinct and different argument than what the value of a film is in the market. I think that is a great thing and I think it pushes other distributors to do the same.

Are you seeing a lot of life at the theatrical box office for the right kind of indie movie or festival pickup?

Yeah, definitely. I don’t believe this conventional idea that the theatrical business is slowly dying. It has recalibrated. I think audiences are posed with this abundance of content offerings, and they just choose the appropriate media, whether that’s at home or at a theater, and I believe that the theatrical audience will always be there for the right films. And our friends at Neon, A24, IFC and Magnolia are defenders of artistic expression in that way. So, yeah, we definitely believe in that business.

Around the web

— The incredible shrinking podcast industry: “Apple has quietly tightened its reporting of how many people listen to podcasts, sending shock waves through an embattled audio industry.” (Semafor)

— Is the movie studio business like U.S. car manufacturers post-peak? (No Mercy/No Malice)

— Yeah, this could be a problem for Hollywood. Generative AI has a visual plagiarism problem: experiments with Midjourney and DALL-E 3 show a copyright minefield. (IEEE Spectrum)

Finally ...

Acoustic indie rock artist Waxahacthee is back with new music.