What I Learned Reading the 846 Pages of Emmy Ballots

Nominating ballots for the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards were posted on the Television Academy’s website on Thursday to mark the beginning of voting. They were divided into 35 separate documents detailing all the eligible entries in 107 categories,  totaling 846 pages of everyone who’s eligible.

(Not all categories are included in the posted ballots, because some use judging panels or other methods of choosing nominees.)  

We’ve looked through all of those pages and learned a few things. So here’s an overview of Emmy nomination voting in 2025, which will last through Monday, June 23.

There are fewer entries than there were in 2024

Last year was a rough one for the Emmys, with the effects of the pandemic and the actors and writers strikes reducing the number of shows that made it on the air and cutting the number of entries in the vast majority of categories, sometimes by as much as 40%. But rather than rebounding to pre-strike levels, this year’s field is also down, though not nearly as much.

Of the 106 categories for which a year-by-year comparison is possible, 44 have more entries this year than they did last year; six have the name number of entries; and 56 have fewer entries. Overall, the number of submissions in all categories is down – but only slightly, with a total drop of 142 entries spread out across all of the categories.

Limited series had an off year

In the program categories, Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series took the biggest hit. Only 33 series qualified, 16 fewer than last year’s total and 28 fewer than the 61 eligible titles only two years ago. That led to the three biggest drops in the acting categories, which all took place in the limited series/TV movie categories: lead actor fell by 22, supporting actor by 37 and supporting actress by 32.

Something similar happened up and down the ballot: In every category devoted to limited series and TV movies, both above and below the line, this year saw a significant drop, almost always in double digits.

But we’ll have more nominees this year

Apart from the Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Comedy Series categories, which are set at eight nominees each, the number of nominees in each category is determined by how many submissions are made in that category. If it’s 20 to 80, the category gets five nominees; 81 to 160 gets six; 161 to 240 gets seven; anything over 240 gets eight.

And despite the overall drop in submissions, more categories appear to be in line to go up in size than to go down this year.

In the acting races, for example, lead actor in a drama series should drop from six nominees last year to five this year, and supporting actor in a limited series should drop from seven to six. But supporting actor in a comedy should go up from six to seven, guest actor in a drama should go up from five to six (with guest actress following because the rules dictate actor/actress equity) and performer in a short-form series should go up from three nominees last year to five this year.

Overall, eight categories are in line to grow in size compared to last year; only six are in line to go down.

Category hogging in the acting categories is quite possible this year

For years, a small number of shows have grabbed a large number of acting nominations. “The White Lotus” is a prime example, dominating the supporting categories in its first two seasons by getting eight noms in its first year and nine in its second. “The Morning Show” got seven acting noms of its own last year, while “Succession” set a record with 14 acting nominations in 2022 and then tied it in 2023.

Could it happen again this year? The Emmy ballots suggest it’s possible, starting with the roster of candidates from “The White Lotus.” A full 20 of the actors from Mike White’s show were submitted, from favorites like Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Carrie Coon and Aimee Lou Wood to lesser-known contenders like Nicholas Duvernay, Lalisa Manobal and Charlotte Le Bon. Nine men and 10 women are entered in the supporting actor and actress category, while Scott Glenn is the sole cast member entered in a guest category.

But while “Lotus” has had the greatest success among this year’s contenders in racking up multiple nominations in the past, it’s not the show with the most acting entries this year. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s “The Studio” has 22 entries, which include cast members along with 12 movie-industry figures who are submitted for playing themselves, or at least versions of themselves: Zac Efron, Dave Franco, Ron Howard (also up for playing himself in “Only Murders in the Building”), Zoe Kravitz, Greta Lee, Anthony Mackie, Sarah Polley, Martin Scorsese, Nicholas Stoller, Olivia Wilde, Ramy Youssef and, most surprisingly, journalist Matt Belloni.

Other shows with lots of acting submissions include “Abbott Elementary” with 12, “Hacks” with 13, “The Pitt” with 17 and “Severance” with 19. But they’re all slackers compared to our next item.

“Saturday Night Live” went all out

“SNL” celebrated its 50th season by submitting an astonishing 43 different actors to the Emmys. You’d think they could have gone for an even 50 to match the number of seasons – but there really wasn’t anybody left to enter. The “SNL” submissions included every one of the season’s 14 “repertory players,” all three of its “featured players,” five celebrity guests (Dana Carvey as Joe Biden, Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz, Mike Myers as Elon Musk, Andy Samberg as Doug Emhoff and Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris), and every single one of the season’s 20 hosts, from Jean Smart to Scarlett Johansson. Plus, Darrell Hammond was submitted for narrating the series’ anniversary special.

As fine as the anniversary spirit is, though, voters have been cooling on the show’s performers in recent years. After “SNL” averaged almost eight acting nominations a year from 2015 through 2021, it has averaged only three in the past three years. The only cast members to be nominated in that time have been Kate McKinnon once and Bowen Yang twice, plus nods for hosts Quinta Brunson, Jerrod Carmichael, Ryan Gosling, Pedro Pascal, Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig.

The choreography category has the ultimate category-hogger

There are 34 entries in the Outstanding Choreography for Variety or Reality Programming categories.  They come from shows that include Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show, “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” the Grammys and the Oscars and “Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show 2024,” with 18 different programs supplying 18 of the nominees.

And then there’s “Dancing With the Stars,” which submitted the other 16 entries in the category.  No other category has this kind of imbalance, with 47% of the entries coming from one program. But it’s worth noting that while “DWTS” has received 23 Emmy nominations for choreography and won five times (placing it a distant second to the 43 noms and 12 wins for “So You Think You Can Dance”), it hasn’t had more than one nomination in the category since 2021, and the only time it has had more than two was in its first year in the competition, 2006.

Some shows are worried about vote-splitting. Others, not so much

In the directing and writing categories, “How many episodes should we submit?” has long been a thorny question. If you enter multiple episodes, are you increasing your chance of being nominated or are you making it easier to split the vote and lose out entirely? Pundits tend to favor the latter theory, though it’s not hard to find examples of a popular show landing multiple nominations: “The Bear” did it last year for directing and “Shogun” did it for writing.

This year, many of the top contenders stop with one or two entries in those categories, though it’s fairly common to go up to three submissions in directing. In comedy directing, “Abbott Elementary,” “Agatha All Along,” “The Bear,” “Only Murders in the Building,” “Runing Point” and “Somebody Somewhere” are among the programs that entered a trio of episodes for directing, while “Poker Face” and “Shrinking” were the only two shows to enter four episodes.

Drama directing, though, was a different matter. Seventeen shows entered at least three episodes, with “The Pitt,” “Paradise” and “Severance” stopping at three but others going much farther. “The Boys” and “House of the Dragon” submitted five, “Will Trent” did six (including one directed by Howie Deutch and one directed by his wife, Lea Thompson), “Yellowstone” did seven and Ryan Murphy’s medical drama “Doctor Odyssey” submitted 11, one for each of its first season directors.

Writing submissions were more modest, with the “Star Wars” spinoff series “The Acolyte” submitting eight episodes and the comedy series “The Conners” and “Poker Face” submitting five. Among the shows that stuck with a single entry were the comedies “Abbott Elementary,” “Hacks,” “Only Murders in the Building,” “The Righteous Gemstones” and “The Studio” and the dramas “The Last of Us,” “Matlock,” “Severance,” “Slow Horses” and “The White Lotus.”

And yes, “Lotus” submitted the episode with Sam Rockwell’s monologue.

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