Rumorbusting: Emmy voting has not plummeted 30 to 40 percent
Gossipmeisters claim that voter participation in choosing Emmy nominees is down as much as 30 to 40 percent due to frustration over a new voting procedure.
Not true, says ATAS awards chief John Leverence, who tells Gold Derby that auditors report "that the volume of voting sheets they received was greater this year than last."
One TV network VP told me he believes participation has plummeted so much because lots of academy members told him they didn't bother voting when they didn't receive the usual bound volume of eligible contenders in the mail. In an effort to save money this year, ATAS asked voters to check internet listings instead. Academy members who wanted the usual paper rundown had to order it ahead of time.
Backing up the claim of the network exec, I recently discovered one past Emmy winner and one member of the ATAS Board of Governors who had the same, frustrating experience. They failed to order the printed eligibility list ahead of time, so when it came time to vote, they were baffled . . .
. . . over what to do. After re-reading the instructions over and over, they finally figured out that they had to go to the ATAS website to see the eligibility list, but, once there, were befuddled again: what were the correct user names and passwords to gain entry?
One of them gave up right there. The other managed to break through, but quit when he got bored scrolling and scrolling through screen after screen of eligible contenders. "It's just not as easy as having the book in hand to flip through," he told me.
I fessed up and told Leverence the identity of one of these bedeviled near-voters and he replied, "Wish he would have taken up our offer when we sent out the preliminary voting packets to opt for a hard copy ballot in the mail. About 700 members did."
hmmmmmm. I wonder if this may mean a higher % of younger voters than in years past since they seem more likely to go online to get the ballots?
Posted by: Paul8148 | July 12, 2007 at 11:16 PM