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Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series

Category of Primetime Emmy Awards From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series represents excellence in the category of limited series that are two or more episodes, with a total running time of at least 150 minutes.

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Criteria

The program must tell a complete, non-recurring story, and not have an ongoing storyline or main characters in subsequent seasons.[1]

Background

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The category began as the Outstanding Drama/Comedy – Limited Episodes in 1973.[2][3] Prior to that year, limited series and miniseries were entered in the same category as continuing series for Outstanding Series – Drama. According to a 1972 newspaper article in the Los Angeles Times,[2] this change might be due to the then recent entry of a number of British produced limited series that were competing with American produced continuing series in the same pre-existing category. The category was renamed Outstanding Limited Series in 1974, and later Outstanding Miniseries in 1986.[3]

In 1991, the Outstanding Miniseries category was merged with Outstanding TV Movie, then called Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special, to form Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special and Miniseries, and the number of nominees increased from five to six.[4] For that year, two miniseries had competed with four "made-for-television movies". The decision was reversed in 1992. In 2011, due to a low number of eligible miniseries in recent years, the categories were again merged as Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie, before reverting in 2014, following an influx in limited series following the critically and commercial popularity of the FX anthology series American Horror Story.[5] A year later, the name of the awards category was changed to Outstanding Limited Series, and the rules were made to distinguish that category from that of a movie by having the work have at least two episodes, and from that of a regular series by having no more than five episodes.[1] The 2015 rule change allowed more short-seasoned cable TV programs to compete, while prior rules had forced the same programs to compete in the same category with full seasons network programs.

What has been unique about this award in recent years (and even so today) is that there is almost always at least one nominee originating from Great Britain. For example, the 2005 winner was The Lost Prince, which happened to be that year's British entry. The 2006 winner, Elizabeth I, was also a British miniseries, although it was a co-production with American television network HBO. Likewise, the 2019 winner, Chernobyl, was a co-production of British and American companies (in this case, Sky UK and HBO).

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Milestones

Before the inaugurated category in 1973, The Life of Leonardo da Vinci marked the first non-English language television program to be nominated.

Winners and nominations

1970s

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1980s

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1990s

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2000s

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2010s

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2020s

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Programs with multiple wins

Producers with multiple awards

Programs with multiple nominations

Totals include continuing series, but not sequels as is the case with Cranford and Return to Cranford, Roots and Roots: The Next Generations, and others.

Producers with multiple nominations

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Total awards by network

  • HBO – 14
  • NBC – 10
  • PBS – 10
  • ABC – 5
  • FX – 3
  • Netflix — 3
  • Syndicated – 2
  • A&E – 1
  • AMC – 1
  • CBS – 1
  • Syfy – 1
  • TNT – 1

See also

Notes

  1. Over a 23-day period in July and August 1988, the PBS series Rumpole of the Bailey was: initially nominated in this category;[22] then ruled ineligible, as each episode was a standalone story rather than a component of an ongoing miniseries story, replaced by the sixth place nomination, The Bourne Identity;[23] then reinstated in Outstanding Drama Series, with the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) acknowledging that it had simply given the wrong advice to the producers of the British series as to what category to submit for.[24] As of 2024, despite this confirmed 23-day storyline, the ATAS website still shows Rumpole of the Bailey as having been nominated in the Miniseries category with no mention of The Bourne Identity,[21] while Rumpole of the Bailey is not mentioned in the Drama Series category of the website.[25]
  2. As of 2024, the en.wiki article mislabels The Bourne Identity as a "television film", but acknowledges that the four hour show was spread over two nights, qualifying it as a miniseries - as confirmed by its Emmy nomination for Outstanding Miniseries.[23]
  3. In 1991 (Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special and Miniseries) and from 2011 to 2013 (Outstanding Miniseries or Movie), miniseries competed in a combined category.
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References

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