Cynopsis Media presents 

Before the Ballots:

Specials & Non-Fiction

2010 Primetime Emmy® Award Pre-Nomination Special Report
 

 06/17/10

Good morning. It’s Thursday, June 17, 2010, and this is the fifth and last of five special reports focused on the Pre-Nomination phase of the 2010 Primetime Emmy® Awards.

BEFORE THE BALLOTS: Specials & Non-Fiction
By Daisy Whitney

A group of funny guys, survival of the fittest, the most significant artists and classic tales of great sports stories.

Those are the subjects of some of the leading contenders for the outstanding non-fiction series Emmy award. The nominees will be announced July 8 along with all the other categories. As in years past, many of the nominations in the non-fiction specials and series categories will go to networks such as Discovery, ESPN, History Channel, IFC, Travel Channel, HBO and PBS, the stalwart of the non-fiction genre.

The nominations for non-fiction awards often depend more on name recognition than some of the other categories, expert say. It helps a non-fiction show to have received a big marketing push from its network, both when it ran and during awards picking time, to keep these shows top of mind for Emmy® voters.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM IFC

Likely Picks

Some shows are perennial contenders in the best non-fiction series category, such as American Masters on PBS, which is nominated nearly every year. Another likely pick is Bravo’s long-time interview show Inside the Actor’s Studio, said Chris Beachum, an Emmy® expert with AwardsHeaven.net and LATimes.com. The show is hosted by James Lipton and has been nominated several times in the category.

PBS’ American Masters series took home the win last year, marking its seventh win in the category in the past ten years, PBS said. The show has been a staple on PBS since its creation in 1984 and it focuses on the lives, works and creatives processes of cultural artists like Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins.

Another show that’s likely to be tapped is IFC’s six-part Monty Python documentary Almost the Truth: The Lawyer’s Cut that ran last fall.

“IFC is promoting the Monty Python one like crazy,” Beachum said. “It’s a strong contender. It’s very thorough, has new interviews and details from their past, and is well put together,” he said.

IFC likes the sound of that. The Monty Python documentary series is one of the programs the network is betting on most heavily for a nod.

“In more than 40 years, Monty Python has never been recognized with an Emmy®,” said Evan Shapiro, President of IFC and Sundance Channel. “Without Python there is no Saturday Night Live, no Mad TV, no Conan O’Brien. The biting satire you see on TV today is in the direct lineage of Monty Python and these guys have never been recognized.”

The show itself documents how the troupe came to be, its impact on comedy and its achievements, Shapiro said.

Then there’s Life from Discovery, that network’s successor to its Emmy®-award winning Planet Earth series that showcased the far reaches of the globe. Life is a natural history series that documents animal behavior, adaptations and survivals. “This was our most ambitious project ever with more than 3000 days of shooting over four years,” said Clark Bunting, President and General Manager of the Discovery and Science Channel. “The scale and scope and the ambition of the storytelling is what makes it so special. What you found for most of the sequences is they took anywhere from 20 days to 10 weeks of filming and that’s per sequence not per act.”

More than 85 million people tuned into its premiere run from March 21 to April 18.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM SESAME WORKSHOP

Other Contenders

The network is also entering Deadliest Catch in the Outstanding Nonfiction Series category. Beachum thinks Life has a strong chance, due in part to the promotion it’s receiving from the network. “Later on when they do the voting, whoever is on these will look at the material and decide based on what they feel is the best,” Beachum said. “But at this stage a lot is based on what’s being promoted heavily, name recognition, what voters may have seen.”

Discovery’s Bunting and IFC’s Shapiro also weighed in on their expected competition in the series category. Bunting thinks History Channel’s America: The Story of Us, an epic story on the forces that shaped America, will earn a nod.

Both network frontmen like ESPN’s critically acclaimed documentary series 30 for 30 that’s shot and directed by  some of the top filmmakers in Hollywood. “It’s like personal essays on sports. It’s an unusual take,” Bunting said.

Shapiro is also a fan of Travel Channel’s No Reservations, the Anthony Bourdain vehicle. “He talks about things other people don’t talk about and he is a unique personality on TV. I’m not going to go to the places he goes to and do the things he does but I get to live vicariously through him.”

There’s a chance that Elvis Costello’s music and talk series Spectacle on Sundance Channel could nab a nomination, Beachum said. If it does, then the show’s executive producer Elton John may have a shot in snagging the final award that’s eluded him in the quest for an EGOT – that’s the quartet of Emmy®, Grammy®, Oscar® and Tony® awards. He’s won all but an Emmy®.

The Specials

When it comes to outstanding non-fiction specials, the 20th anniversary Simpsons special has a good chance at a nomination especially since the series itself has won so many Emmy® awards.

HBO will surely be tapped many times this year. A strong entrant in specials this year is By the People: The Election of Barack Obama.

“It shows the emotions of a candidate and it shows how long and grueling the pace is of a campaign. It really peels back the covers and shows you something you think you know but don’t,” Bunting said.

HBO is also throwing its weight behind the Ted Kennedy special Teddy: In His Own Words and Terror in Mumbai.

A&E’s Battle for Late Night chronicling the drama behind that coveted time slot is also a possibility.

History is betting on The People Speak, a documentary designed to “celebrate the spirit of democracy” though original source material like letters, speeches and poems from everyday American, said David McKillop, SVP Development and Programming for History. The network also submitted its documentary Manson on the Charles Manson murders that was based on new interviews with accomplice and Manson family member Linda Kasabian. Last year the network won this category for 102 Minutes That Changed America, a documentary on 9/11.

TLC’s Brace for Impact on the Hudson River plane crash may vie for a nomination too.

This full 5-part series of 2010 Primetime Emmy® Award Pre-Nomination Special Reports are available on the Cynopsis website in our special Primetime Emmy® 2010 section.  Kicking off July 31st will be our second round of Emmy special editions, highlighting the nominees. 

Later —
Daisy Whitney for Cynopsis
daisywhitney@gmail.com
06.17.10

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