The 77th annual Emmy Awards took place on Sunday, Sept. 14, at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles. The show drew in over 7.4 million views across the country, five of which came from the homes of University of Alabama film professors.
The powerhouse of the night was undoubtedly “The Studio,” a show following a Hollywood studio head and his team as they attempt to navigate the pressure and demands of the film industry. The show brought home 13 Emmys, including the coveted Best Comedy Series award, the most ever in a single year.
Teddy Champion, an associate professor in journalism and creative media, said the show accurately portrays the reality of studio filmmaking.
“As someone who has worked in Hollywood and been on all the major studio lots, I’m familiar with the hierarchy of executives and the lingering tensions between art and commerce,” he said. “It’s great fodder for parody.”
Another one of the night’s biggest winners was “The Pitt,” a medical show set in a modern Pittsburgh emergency room. It took home three awards, including Outstanding Drama Series.
Landon Palmer, an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media, thought the win was well-deserved.
“I think ‘The Pitt’ winning the Outstanding Drama Series Emmy, and so many others, is an important moment for the industry,” he said. “Although it’s an HBO Max show, it’s very much made in the style of a prime-time network drama of the ‘90s and 2000s. Its win is a way of saying that these familiar medical dramas are just as worthy of recognition as the more niche and complex shows that have dominated this category over the last few decades.”
On top of recognizing the impact of its win, Palmer went on to compliment the substance of the show itself.
“The cast is great and the supporting characters feel layered and authentic,” he said. “The drama is engrossing, and it manages to address contemporary issues, but in a way that feels natural to the setting. It definitely heightened my appreciation for the things ER staff have to face every day.”
One of the biggest points of contention for this year’s show was its host, comedian Nate Bargatze. Known for his family-friendly comedy, Bargatze was undoubtedly a divisive choice to lead the ceremony.
Stefania Marghitu, an assistant professor in film and television, found his performance to be particularly underwhelming.
“Nate Bargatze was not great,” she said. “It is a tough gig, but I think they can find someone more versed in TV without a doubt. They should bring back Amy Poehler and Tina Fey.”
Bargatze’s rising popularity in the comedy world, paired with his family-friendly style, were likely the reasons he was chosen in the first place. Palmer said that bringing the comedian in to host was likely a ploy to draw in audiences that otherwise wouldn’t have tuned in.
“The major award shows have, over the past five years, struggled to find ways to get the audiences they used to have,” Palmer said. “I think that explains not only why Nate Bargatze was asked to host, but also why he had the gimmick to tie winners’ speeches to the Boys and Girls Club donations.”
The most controversial aspect of the show was Bargatze’s way of limiting the length of the winners’ speeches. He did so by pledging to donate $100,000 to the Boys and Girls Club of America, and for every second the speeches came in under their allotted 45 seconds he would add $1,000 but take away the same amount for every second it went over.
Marghitu said that the artists deserved longer to speak and called the money ticker “jarring,” which Palmer agreed with.
“It’s a funny idea to draw down the donation amount if winners go over their time, and I understand the instinct behind discouraging drawn-out speeches,” he said. “But it did create a generic quality to the speeches that I felt made them less interesting. If winners stuck to their time, they only said what they had to. But if they wanted to say anything more, they risked looking like a jerk who is taking money away from children.”
By the end of the night, the donation total was deep enough in the negative for Bargatze to call it “embarrassing.” Nevertheless, he and CBS ended up donating a collective $350,000 to the nonprofit organization.
What may have been the biggest takeaway from the night, however, was the dominance of streaming services. 26 awards were given out, with shows released on streaming services taking home 20 of them.
“I think we’re seeing Apple TV+ cemented as a new platform for prestige TV,” Marghitu said. “Netflix cares more about IP content, so ‘Adolescence’ was its only heavy hitter, but there were some solid HBO Max wins like ‘The Pitt.’”
John Haley, an assistant professor of creative media, said the rise of streaming has been a steadily growing trend.
“I think the dominance of streaming isn’t unique to this year but has been happening for a few years now,” he said. “This year was the first time that streaming services overtook cable and broadcast, but I think these streaming services had an outsized presence in awards prior to 2025.”
