During the 76th annual Primetime Emmys, FX did the unthinkable: It beat both HBO and Netflix.
The Disney-owned basic cable network scored a total of 93 Emmy nominations, winning 36 awards compared to Netflix’s 24 and HBO’s 14. HBO, a longtime Emmys champion, has been beaten before — Netflix pulled a historic 44 wins in 2021 compared to HBO’s 19.
What’s notable now is that the poster child for award-winning television came in third on Sunday.
“I don’t think just because HBO had a slightly down year they’re going anywhere. I easily could find them back on top,” FX Networks chairman John Landgraf told TheWrap in a post-Emmys interview, as praise for Disney came pouring in for daring shows like “Shōgun,” “The Bear” and an audience favorite, Ron Howard’s “Jim Henson Idea Man.”
By contrast, HBO was the surprise winner for Best Comedy with “Hacks.”
The FX chair added: “But you can see Disney’s now a powerhouse in the aftermath of the Fox transaction, the transition to streaming and everything that’s been done to reconceptualize what Disney is in television.”
There are myriad reasons why the Emmys shook out the way they did. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes delayed several of HBO’s most critically praised projects, including “The Last of Us” and “The White Lotus,” which missed this year’s eligibility window.
And only Emmys voters will understand how “The Bear” star Liza Colón-Zayas won for Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series over Meryl Streep, Hannah Einbinder and Carol Burnett. “I don’t know what drives these systems,” Landgraf said of the surprise victory. “I’m thrilled she did.”
But more than anything, this year’s Emmys race emerged as a battle between cable giants with two remarkably different parent companies: Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery. One prioritized its awards darling, leveraging a new approach to its streaming services to get the most eyeballs on its acclaimed content, while the other remains unsure of how to handle its best-known TV brand, HBO, even while cutting its investment in content.
“HBO is still the greatest programming team around… Their hit rate is unbelievable,” said a former network chief who spoke to TheWrap. “But they’re not spending enough on content. They need to spend a couple of billion dollars more [a year].”
Said this former mogul: “They need to double down. Invest.”
An individual with knowledge of WBD’s strategy disputed that, telling TheWrap that WBD is spending more, not less, on content overall. “Warner Bros. Discovery feels HBO content is as essential as ever as it takes Max around the world,” the person said.
Representatives for HBO and Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment on this story.
The Disney effect
In addition to FX winning 36 awards as a network, The Walt Disney Company took home 60 Emmys overall, breaking the record for the most wins in a year scored by a single company. CBS previously set that record in 1974 with 44 wins, which Netflix tied in 2021.
Disney bested the CBS record by 36% this year. “What has been assembled here by Bob [Iger], under Disney’s aegis, has just broken a glass ceiling that’s existed for eight decades, basically,” Landgraf said.
The executive credited his network’s parent company for providing the scale of production and streaming audience that made “Shōgun” possible, and for expanding the network’s viewership through Hulu and Disney+.
FX is no stranger to critical praise — shows like “Atlanta,” “Pose” and “The Americans” (eventually) picked up noteworthy Emmys in the past, while limited series like “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” and “Fosse/Verdon” ran the table at previous awards. But this was the first year that FX was able to fully leverage a massive streaming extension. The Hulu tile on Disney+ was added in the middle of “Shōgun’s” rollout, offering even greater exposure for the growing hit.
Not that they hadn’t tried before. In March of 2019, The Walt Disney Company acquired 21st Century Fox, which also owned FX. The move led to some growing pains as the companies tried to hone in on FX’s streaming plans, including shelving the short-lived FX+ and creating the “FX on Hulu” brand.
Disney later altered that branding to make FX a hub on both Hulu and Disney+. But the company continued to launch certain shows, like “The Bear,” exclusively on Hulu.
Coming out of the corporate reshuffling, FX emerged stronger than ever. Previously, the most Emmys the network had won in a single year was 18, a record it set in 2016, largely due to “The People v. OJ Simpson.” FX doubled that this year thanks to multiple strong contenders in “Shōgun,” “The Bear” and “Fargo.”
Ten years ago, AMC, Showtime and Comedy Central were major players in the Emmys race, each racking up more than 20 nominations. This year, Comedy Central only secured five nominations and Showtime had three. AMC as a network didn’t receive any nominations, though the AMC-produced “Mary & George” (Starz) and “Silo” (Apple TV+) did get noms.
At the height of cable a decade ago, FX benefited from the logic that a rising tide lifts all boats. If AMC was having an especially strong year, FX also experienced a boost, because the network was part of the same cable subscription. Now, as a member of the Disney ecosystem, the network is in a similar position.
“If we were having this conversation a year from now and ABC and Hulu had a phenomenal year, and FX was a little bit down, as long as The Walt Disney Company had a great year and Hulu at Disney+ had a great year, that’s still really good for us,” Landgraf said. “You need the ability to draw from different strengths and different places. Because as much as I would like to say we’re going to have a great year every year — and we always put things out every year that I’m really proud of creatively — that’s just not the way this television business works.”
HBO and Warner Bros. Discovery’s approach
HBO’s awards conundrum can largely be attributed to three factors: bad timing, two intense competitors and the shakiness of corporate parent Warner Bros. Discovery.
Heading into the 2024 Emmys, HBO and its streaming adjunct Max were in a thorny place. WBD’s combined companies had a total of 91 Emmy nominations — only two less than FX, but the lowest number of nods the premium brand’s home had seen in over a decade. Also, due to delays caused by the writers and actors’ strikes, HBO was missing some of its biggest contenders. CEO Casey Bloys admitted the network’s awards offerings were “a little bit compressed.” That was in addition to losing their drama and comedy juggernauts “Succession” and “Barry,” respectively, which concluded last year.
Beyond that, there’s the fact that HBO has been in a confusing place for the past four years. When WarnerMedia first launched what was then known as HBO Max in 2020, it did so with a slate of shows labeled Max originals. Those platform-exclusive shows created a divide, confusing audiences about what constitutes an HBO original versus a Max original. (The Emmy-dominating “Hacks” is a Max show.)
In 2022, David Zaslav took over the company with the formation of Warner Bros. Discovery, as Discovery and Warner Bros. came together. At the time, Zaslav said that the state of the new company was “messier than we thought.” HBO went from generating a profit of $2.5 billion in 2019 to losing $3 billion in 2021, according to Zaslav. That led to a series of unpopular cost-cutting measures that included mass layoffs and shelving already-completed projects like the DC Comics movie “Batgirl,” as well as completely removing already-premiered Max originals, such as “Close Enough.”
WBD also engaged in a streaming rebranding. In April of 2023, it cut the HBO from HBO Max, leaving Max as a streaming service that combined the content of what HBO Max had with Discovery+ and offered what Zaslav referred to as a “one-two punch” of appointment TV and more bingeable reality fare.
This change brought its own issues. First, there was the outcry that WBD was ditching the beloved HBO brand by removing it from the platform’s name. Bloys defended the decision, saying, “It’s a premium brand. It is not designed to take on everything in the streaming service.”
There was also the delineation between HBO originals and Max originals. Earlier this year, it was announced that previously announced Max originals like “Harry Potter,” “The Penguin” and the “It” series “Welcome to Derry” would now be HBO projects.
“The idea of using Warner Bros. IP as a delineation for Max felt right,” Bloys said. “But as we started producing those shows, we were using the same methods, the same kind of thinking, as how we would approach HBO shows. In a lot of cases, the same talent that has worked on HBO shows. The idea of the delineation kind of started to feel unnecessary… Let’s just call them what they are: HBO shows.”
When you put it together, this all paints the picture of a company that’s still working through its strategy for both streaming and its awards darling.
But not everyone agrees that this year signifies a shift in the awards space. “HBO has been incredibly successful over decades,” LightShed Ventures analyst Rich Greenfield told TheWrap. “The reality is there are several networks that create great content every year, including FX and HBO. Some years one will do well, and some years another will do well. I don’t think there’s some fundamental shift… It’s difficult to read too much into it.”
Further complicating matters, WBD has struggled more than its rival entertainment companies, holding $39 billion in debt as its stock price has plummeted more than 27% this year. In August, the company posted a $10 billion quarterly net loss after taking a $9.1 billion charge, mostly tied to writing down the value of its television networks as linear broadcast and cable stations continue to decline.
What’s next?
Looking ahead to the Emmys’ future, it’s not risky to predict that HBO, Netflix and FX will remain among the top brands. It’s also likely that HBO and Max will bounce back from their 2024 slump as production resumes following delays from the strikes.
The Colin Farrell-starring “The Penguin” premieres this Thursday and “Dune: Prophecy” is scheduled for November. HBO’s “The White Lotus” Season 3 is expected to premiere in early 2025, with Season 2 of “The Last of Us” also expected to air within the Emmys eligibility window.
Zaslav touted HBO’s upcoming slate as “one of the strongest ever” during its first quarter earnings call, while the network recently ordered new comedies from Rachel Sennott and Tim Robinson to make up for the conclusion of shows like “Barry” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
As for Netflix, the streamer is about to premiere “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” — the anthology’s second season after “Dahmer” — and the highly anticipated second season of “Squid Game” will premiere on Dec. 26.
FX may be the odd man out, as Season 2 of “Shōgun” — the series responsible for 18 of FX’s 36 wins — is currently in the middle of writing its second season. Instead, the network will rely on shows like “The Old Man” Season 2, the final season of “What We Do in the Shadows,” its new Ryan Murphy drama “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez,” Brian Jordan Alvarez’s buzzy “English Teacher,” Noah Hawley’s “Alien: Earth” and Season 3 of “The Bear,” which premiered at the start of the 2025 Emmys eligibility period to mixed reviews.
“There’s a lot of stuff coming that I’m really excited about,” Landgraf said. “It won’t all work, but some of it will.”
Sharon Waxman contributed to this story.
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