Kathy Bates’ Emmys nod says a lot about the state of TV

Give it up for Matlock star Kathy Bates who was greeted on Tuesday morning with an Emmy nomination for best actress in a drama Bates scoring her th nod from the Television Academy wasn t necessarily surprising mind you Her performance as Madeline Matty Matlock garnered strong reviews as well as a shot at a Golden Globe in January Her nomination also earned the -year-old actor a spot in the industry s record books making her the oldest best drama actress Emmy nominee The late Angela Lansbury another revered CBS drama alumna was the previous record holder She earned her final nomination in at the age of But then Lansbury was a regular nominee thanks to her iconic portrayal of Jessica Fletcher on Murder She Wrote which tells you just how different the TV landscape was years ago Matlock is the second highest-rated drama on CBS which is the most-watched broadcast organization according to Nielsen Yet Bates inclusion in this top category still counts as a minor miracle It would be three more years before a couple of American cable drama actors cracked the category in when Lorraine Bracco and Edie Falco scored nominations for their work on The Sopranos Falco ended up winning that Emmy five years before Academy voters gave The Sopranos and HBO their first best drama Emmy in Within years the prestige TV era had critics wondering whether cable would render broadcast primetime obsolete Turns out that fear was a tad overstated and more than a decade early According to Nielsen s monthly Gauge record broadcast TV plummeted to of overall viewing in June as streaming climbed to claim of all total TV usage This measure also marks the first time that broadcast TV s audience share sank below a stat that begs for a pulse check Related There s more film and TV to watch than ever Good luck finding it Nevertheless anyone who s been watching streaming s audience numbers creep upward may see that and shrug Linear viewership has been steadily declining since Tony Soprano ruled television with cable and broadcast usage dipping below for the first time in July The true milestone hit in May of this year when the Gauge document indicated that streaming s viewership surpassed broadcast and cable to claim of that month s audience That happened before Peacock s Love Island USA became this summer s social media sensation to say nothing of the final season of Squid Encounter on Netflix which failed to figure in major categories In defense of those critics predicting broadcast s demise not even Netflix Inc could have predicted that streaming would conquer the small screen Back then CEO Reed Hastings was perhaps patting himself on the back for his role in murdering Blockbuster Video with his company s innovative DVD rental-by-mail system Sonja Flemming CBS Kathy Bates as Madeline Matlock and Julie Hagerty as Bitsy in Matlock At present all of Bates category competitors work for streaming services including Keri Russell of Netflix s The Diplomat Severance star Britt Lower and Bad Sisters lead Sharon Horgan whose shows are on Apple TV and Bella Ramsey of The Last of Us with episodes premiering on HBO and HBO Max at the same time Matlock is the second highest-rated drama on CBS which is the most-watched broadcast architecture according to Nielsen Yet Bates inclusion in this top category still counts as a minor miracle The last time a broadcast show scored a best drama actress nomination was when Viola Davis performance in ABC s How to Get Away with Murder earned a nod along with Mandy Moore for NBC s This Is Us which was the last architecture drama to get a top drama Emmy nod in This Is Us star Sterling K Brown scored a lead drama actor nomination in too On Tuesday he presented up on the best drama actor list for his turn on Hulu s Paradise joining Noah Wyle The Pitt from HBO Max Adam Scott Severance Gary Oldman Apple TV s Slow Horses and Pedro Pascal The Last of Us Severance scored nominations for the Emmys with HBO Max s limited series The Penguin landing including individual nods for stars Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti as well as a slot in the best limited or anthology series race There it will compete against FX on Hulu s Dying for Sex along with Netflix s Black Mirror Monsters The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story and Adolescence which earned nominations Apple TV s comedy The Studio earned nominations with Disney s Star Wars drama Andor landing and FX on Hulu s The Bear nabbing Even so HBO and HBO Max still claim leadership bragging rights courtesy of Emmy nominations spread across of its shows led by nods for The White Lotus for The Last of Us for Hacks and for The Pitt Netflix racked up nominations overall while ABC led the broadcasters haul with We need your help to stay independent Subscribe currently to assistance Salon s progressive journalism None of this is news by awards season standards Cable started devouring broadcast TV s Emmy nominations breakfasts from the mid-aughts onward until Netflix and Amazon established up in s races In our current post-peak but still too much TV era it s commonly accepted that broadcast is an award season afterthought although critical stalwarts like Abbott Elementary continue to muscle their way into competitions Indeed broadcast comedies have consistently held at least one slot in the top Emmy categories in latest years ABC s Abbott Elementary and its star Quinta Brunson scored nods this year with Brunson s co-stars Janelle James and Sheryl Lee Ralph claiming best supporting actress nods Rounding out the list of Brunson s competition in the best comedy actress category are Uzo Aduba for The Residence and Kristen Bell for Nobody Wants This two more Netflix entries along with Ayo Edebiri for The Bear and Jean Smart for Hacks ABC Disney Gilles Mingasson Quinta Brunson in Abbott Elementary Abbott meanwhile is the sole broadcast TV comedy going up against The Bear Hacks Nobody Wants This Hulu s Only Murders in the Building Apple TV s Shrinking and The Studio with FX s What We Do in the Shadows repping basic cable and streaming since it also runs on Hulu While Love Island USA superstars Huda Mustafa and Chris Seeley are dominating your coworkers break room conversations at the moment if you know you know markedly fewer folks are yapping about the reality and match shows at the moment keeping the lights on at CBS NBC ABC and Fox That may not rank highly on our list of pressing concerns at the moment but it may be worth paying attention to as one indicator that our widening wealth gap is showing up on TV After all if streaming is where the audience is going why continue to devote tools to broadcast The eternal rock-solid reason is that broadcast TV is still freely available to everyone including viewers who can t afford streaming subscriptions and or live in areas lacking stable broadband access It s an especially vital supply for accessing news and information In rural areas lacking local stations with newsrooms which describes around of such communities according to a local news survey conducted by Pew Research broadcast news remains the primary TV source of news and information And primetime ad revenue supports those newsrooms As those audiences shrink so do the dollars networks can command for ads and the paychecks they can offer top talent For example Lester Holt of late left his anchor chair at NBC Nightly News where he reportedly earned million a year His replacement Tom Llamas is estimated to earn around million annually according to The Ankler If streaming is where the audience is going why continue to devote tools to broadcast The eternal rock-solid reason is that broadcast TV is still freely available to everyone including viewers who can t afford streaming subscriptions and or live in areas lacking stable broadband access On top of that are the political threats While President Trump s proposed tariff on movies produced outside the United States hasn t significantly moved closer to reality since he tossed that grenade in May he has threatened major broadcasters licenses Trump sued ABC for defamation and CBS on even flimsier grounds concerning that arrangement s Minutes interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris before the balloting ABC s parent company Disney and CBS owner Paramount Global paid multimillion-dollar settlements to Trump instead of standing up for the First Amendment in court Paramount is concluded to have done so to prevent the Federal Communications Commission s chairman Brendan Carr a Trump appointee from stalling its pending merger with Skydance Media Regardless the FCC s probes into right-wing-generated complaints against ABC NBC and CBS are ongoing For those reasons and others voices that are calling for the death of broadcast networks both from within the industry and on Capitol Hill will likely get louder There are invariably caveats to consider when it comes to the summertime ratings and the Emmys Since the conventional broadcast season is over there are no live sports telecasts to boost overall configuration numbers When the NFL s pre-season kicks in the networks will recoup particular of those losses Sports perpetually robust viewership proves that conventional broadcast still dominates the live TV space even now Start your day with essential news from Salon Sign up for our free morning newsletter Crash Discipline Regarding the Emmys creativity and originality consistently play a part in swaying voters along with popular sentiment The Wrap s Steve Pond also notes that there were fewer overall submissions for the second year in a row which meant less competition for major category nominees than usual yet fewer inspiring surprises However our definition of good TV is invariably subjective The most-watched broadcast TV show of the lately ended - season according to Nielsen is Tracker which is highly entertaining but not a crucial source for divining meaning about America s political and cultural strength Nor is it an unexpected interpretation of a vintage TV title anchored by a superb performance a la Matlock Those are the details that sway Emmy voters Tuesday s top drama list includes two series that straddle cable and streaming HBO s The Last of Us and The White Lotus which drive conversations about our deteriorating humanity and rising classism Andor Severance and its fellow Apple TV drama Slow Horses as well as Netflix s The Diplomat and Paradise comment on our cultural politics and anxieties in their respective solutions So does The Pitt which unveiled its rhythm by replicating the tone and the release cadence of a superb if conventional infrastructure biological show Yet the best drama race doesn t include any hour-long series presently airing on broadcast including Matlock All the more reason to root for Bates one of the minimal contenders in this mix proving that worthy institutions earn their status by demonstrating their durability in rapidly changing times We d be foolish to count them out too soon The th Emmy Awards will air Sunday Sept on CBS and stream on Paramount Read more of our past award show coverage Emmys honor humanity not politics How the Golden Globes became cool again Our Emmys gripes are different this time The post Kathy Bates Emmys nod says a lot about the state of TV appeared first on Salon com