All Four Soaps Threaten To Boycott Daytime Emmys Unless Practices Change
All four soap operas — The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, General Hospital, and Days of our Lives — have announced their intention to boycott the Daytime Emmys unless the awards make significant changes to voting and accounting practices.
A report from Deadline calls this move “an unprecedented show of unity” from the four remaining sudsers. Yesterday, the soaps sent a joint letter to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) chair Terry O’Reilly and interim president and CEO Adam Sharp. The letter came as a result of a major mistake that led to the group rescinding Patrika Darbo’s Daytime Emmy Award for her guest-starring role on The Bay. A soap veteran, Darbo also appeared on both Days of our Lives and The Bold and the Beautiful.
The reason the group rescinded Darbo’s award was due to submission errors. Ultimately, nobody won the Daytime Emmy in that category, and Dabro later said that the committee knew about the mistakes two days before the ceremony and decided to wait until after the show to address the issue, which caused even more stress for everybody concerned.
The letter said, “We are disheartened by the recent events involving NATAS and the 45th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards competition and the decisions made by NATAS regarding the Digital categories of Supporting Actor and Guest Star. We feel the time is appropriate to bring to your attention our serious concerns about the Daytime Emmy Awards competition.”
Trouble brewing with America’s biggest soapies threatening to boycott the Daytime Emmy Awards.https://t.co/kzjEVmXtoG
— tvplus Magazine (@tvplus) July 31, 2018
Ultimately all four shows said they “are united in their decision not to participate in the Daytime Emmy Awards moving forward until these important issues are resolved.”
The letter went on to list several specific concerns that the shows would like to see addressed before agreeing to participate in the awards again. Those who signed the missive included John Fisher, Steven Kent, SEVP Programming, Sony Pictures Television; which produces Days of our Lives and The Young and the Restless; Supervising Producer, The Young and the Restless; Greg Meng, Co-Executive Producer, Days of our Lives; Frank Valentini, Executive Producer, General Hospital; Eva Basler, VP Communications, Bell-Phillip TV Prods., The Bold and the Beautiful.
If all four soaps drop out of the awards ceremony, the Daytime Emmys will lose one of its biggest draws because soap fans are the ones who tune in to watch the event even though they don’t love that it’s offered online only these days.
