To skip ahead to this year's list of nominees, click here
The glitz and glamour of the 44th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, set to take place on Sunday, April 30, is thismuch closer. The official nominees were announced during a special live episode of CBS's The Talk today, and the list of talent chosen to vie for the Emmy statues is one for the books.
"The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is excited to be presenting the 44th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in the historic Pasadena Civic Auditorium," said Bob Mauro, President, NATAS. "With an outstanding roster of nominees, we are looking forward to an extraordinary celebration honoring the craft and talent that represent the best of Daytime television."
"After receiving a record number of submissions, we are thrilled by this talented and gifted list of nominees that will be honored at this year's Daytime Emmy Awards," said David Michaels, SVP, Daytime Emmy Awards. "I am very excited that Michael Levitt is with us as Executive Producer, and that David Parks and I will be serving as Executive Producers as well. With the added grandeur of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, it will be a spectacular gala that celebrates everything we love about Daytime television!"
In a somewhat surprising and even anticlimactic twist, all four soaps -- The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of our Lives, General Hospital, and The Young and the Restless -- received nominations for Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Writing Team, Outstanding Directing Team, and nearly all the Creative Arts categories.
In not-quite-soap-but-still-very-much-soap news, once again the Digital Series categories were dominated by daytime stars. The star-studded series The Bay will try defend its title as Outstanding Digital Series against the Crystal Chappell-led former winner, Venice, and the soapy Tainted Dreams. To properly acknowledge the growing number of digital series, the Academy this year added two additional categories for Supporting/Guest Actor and Supporting/Guest Actress.
As previously reported, there were changes made to this year's submission process. Any actor or actress who submitted themselves for Emmy consideration this year could submit scenes from up to four episodes, but the total running time of all the submitted scenes could not exceed 20 minutes in length. Previously, performers could only include material from two episodes. The reason for the change was to allow performers to show a greater range of material and to not be confined to showing an entire episode in which they may have only had a significant presence in a single, memorable scene.
The Daytime Emmys event will be held Sunday, April 30, at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Southern California. NATAS has not announced if the ceremony will be broadcast. However, fans will once again be able to attend the ceremony. Tickets will be sold for $50 on a first come, first served basis on the Daytime Emmy web site.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW A LIST OF THIS YEAR'S NOMINEES
FIND OUT WHICH STARS WERE PRE-NOMINATED FOR AN EMMY
What do you think about the official nominees for this year's Daytime Emmy race? Who are you especially excited to see make the list? Is there anyone you hoped would make the final list but unfortunately did not? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
