Since 1949, the Emmy Awards have served as a way of acknowledging the hard work and accomplishments of those who work in the television industry. In its first incarnation, only television shows produced and aired in the Los Angeles television market were up for an award. A lot has changed since then, and more changes are coming in 2017. The Emmys have added two categories for this year's award ceremony, which will air September 17th on CBS. The Television Academy have added the awards of "Outstanding Music Supervision," as well as "Outstanding Casting in a Reality Series," to this year's award list.
Both awards have been added in an effort the further acknowledge the new and growing efforts of modern television. "Outstanding Music Supervision," will acknowledge the creative contributions made by any musical supervisor. A musical supervisor typically handles a combination of creative and business roles in the musical process for a series. It's the musical supervisor's job to make suggestions on what musical tracks or artists should be featured in a series, and then turn around and negotiate those deals with publishing labels to make it happen. These are the guys who do the legwork to get guys like Raphael Saadiq in Luke Cage, as well as control the musical feel of the series.
The second category added, "Outstanding Casting In A Reality Series," is a little more self-explanatory. This award is going to be for the casting agents who select candidates to appear on your favorite reality show. While that may seem like a pretty easy job, it's more complicated than it sounds. You don't just get the type of romantic tension on The Bachelor or the classic fights of The Real World by just selecting a group of random people. It's these agents' jobs to find people with volatile personalities and others to clash with them. If you're watching a reality series and aren't entertained, it's likely the casting agent didn't do their job well enough. This is a category I'm surprised hasn't been added sooner, as long as reality TV has been around for awhile now.
In addition to the two new categories, THR reports that the Television Academy has also tweaked a couple other things for the 2017 Emmy Awards. The award for cinematography in a single camera series now has been split between a series that run 30 minutes and a series that run for an hour. There has also been some redefining of interactive programming awards, with a renaming of the primary awards as well as the addition of a couple more awards in that field. It's also been confirmed that Stephen Colbert will host the 2017 award ceremony.
I'm really curious to find out who will be nominated for these two new categories. I would not at all be surprised if someone from Luke Cage gets a nomination for "Outstanding Music Supervision," as the soundtrack from that series played often on my Spotify, and Westworld would be a strong contender as well. As far as reality television, I can't put my finger on anything in particular, but obviously The Bachelor is as hot as it's ever been so I imagine it'll get a nomination. We will be sure to keep you informed when the Emmy nominations are announced months from now!
