2026 Emmys Instant Reactions: Is Apple Really the New HBO? What Happened to Netflix?

0:26Matt Belloni:Thank you. come for eligibility. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Every game day, you show up for your team. Now, it's your time. We go V! We go V! Ask your prescriber about WeGoV, semaglutide injection 2.4 milligrams, a GLP-1. Call 1-833-4-WEGOV or visit wegovy.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about WeGoV. Why wait? We. Go. Beat. It is Tuesday, September 15th. We're home from the Emmys. Not too late a night. Craig and I went to the show and a couple after parties. The show was fine. Mariska Hargitay, very likable. Some cringey moments. Maybe don't do multiple musical numbers, but whatever.

1:19Matt Belloni:They got Taylor Swift to do a video, so the digital numbers will be good. It's kind of where we are on TV these days. And the winners, pretty interesting. Widow's Bay, 14 wins, including Best Comedy, I predicted that one, broke the record that was set last year by The Studio, both from Apple TV. The Pit won Best Drama, but all those nominations for the actors kind of canceled each other out and only Noah Wiley won on the live show. And HBO Max got another big win for DTF St. Louis in the limited series category. Colbert won as expected. The Traders beat our guy Probst in Survivor in the reality competition category.

1:53Matt Belloni:and for some reason, Sally Field got another Emmy. Not quite sure what happened there. Everyone in town obsesses over these scorecards from Emmy night who won the most. So the final tally is Apple TV, 28, HBO, 21, Netflix, 16, NBC, Peacock, 15, Disney, all their labels, also 15, CBS, Paramount Plus, 11, and Prime Video, 10. A big night for Apple TV and its content executives, Eddie Q, Zach Van Amberg, and Jamie Ehrlich. Many people talking at the parties about that question of, is Apple the new HBO? We've heard that before, and it's just one of the narratives. So we're going to get into that today with Lucas Shaw, who was not at the Emmys, but he did watch, even the Taylor Swift part.

2:37Matt Belloni:So today it's the Emmys narratives, what's real, what's bogus, and what Craig and I ate at the parties. From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is The Town.

2:51Matt Belloni:Okay, we are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg. Lucas, we really missed you last night at the Emmys. Very sad you weren't there. You didn't. No, we did. You know why? Because I would have liked your food expertise at the parties. Like, I know the food at the HBO party was like hand selected from some east side restaurants that are very hot right now. And I had to have that explained to me. I just didn't know. It's okay. I'll be there. Instead, you just kept me up too late and made me drink too much on Friday before our previous podcast taping. So it all evens out. Which went well, I think. Yeah, by the way, just a little food reviews.

3:35Matt Belloni:We didn't, Craig and I went to the Governor's Ball and went to the HBO Max party. So we did not go to Netflix or Disney or other parties. Craig, best thing you ate? On the way out, giving everybody Howlin' Ray's Chicken and Waffles is a really nice touch. which I kind of thought I was done for the evening. And then at midnight, I was eating chicken nuggets on the way home. That was lovely. As well as Henry's Secret Ice Cream. They gave away pints of Henry's Secret Ice Cream. The most expensive pint of ice cream in Los Angeles. Yeah, it's like$25 a pint. They had a station in the party and they gave you a pint to go.

4:06Matt Belloni:It was delicious. I had it at the party. It was delicious. I took it home for my kid. I did not have any hot chicken because I realized that it would cause me problems all night. But the dumplings, they had like a dumpling station. And I don't know the restaurant. I apologize. But it was like, apparently they have a Michelin star. And those were delicious inside. So props to HBO for the food. We're not talking about food today, though. We're talking about Emmys and the narratives. And the thing that annoys executives to no end. Because we both know that there are a lot of reasons why shows win Emmys.

4:43Matt Belloni:And these days, when the voters like a show, they tend to just check the boxes. and everybody from the show wins. It happened last year with the studio in the pit. And this year it happened with Widow's Bay. Still, the narrative coming out of the Emmys is really this whole Apple TV is the new HBO, which I know annoys the shit out of the HBO people. But what do you think about it? Well, it's undeniable that Apple is making shows that people in Hollywood love and that critics like, because Apple over the last two, three years has become one of the real contenders at the Emmys alongside HBO and alongside Netflix.

5:26And it sort of like got that buzz around it. I think one of the differences is I still feel like they don't, they've done it a few times, but they don't always have sort of like the cultural splash. Like it's just hard to judge with some of these shows right now, right? Like, yes, I know a lot of people who have watched Widow's Bay and really like it. But then you look at the numbers and nobody watches that show. And look -

5:54Matt Belloni:The least watched of all the nominees. Right. And HBO, at the beginning of HBO, The Sopranos was not watched by everyone. It was definitely a coastal show, but it still had a real audience to it. And I think that's the part that's still kind of missing for Apple is it's sort of like it has become one of, if not the streaming service of choice for a sort of elite group of people. But it doesn't have the mass appeal, cultural splash in the way that some of the big HBO shows do. Yeah, it seems what's happening in streaming is that there's been an evolution. And whereas in the early days of streaming, these big platforms were sort of all chasing the same thing.

6:37Matt Belloni:We want the good shows. We want the prestige. We want to impress people. But now it seems like there is a stratification happening, just like in linear television, where CBS would make great shows over the years and would not get nominated. And they would have to settle for their shows just being high rank. Right. In the 80s and 90s, the broadcast network, I mean, for most dominated the Emmys. But by the 2000s, it was all premium cable. And yes, you'd have comedy was still one area where broadcast comedies often won. You know, Modern Family dominated that category for a while. But certainly in drama that just became okay fx amc hbo showtime basically traded places winning the awards and then that gave way to hbo sort of stayed in that conversation fx depending on the year and then the streaming services and now we're seeing that in the streaming services where these three sort of dominant not niche but prestige oriented streamers are getting the awards and then you've got paramount plus that got one award on the show actually they didn't even get it the one award for cbs and paramount went to colbert last night they had 11 total prime video had zero last night they got 10 total if you count creative arts that's because they're not making those shows they're just not and they're happy having reacher and they're happy having stuff they'd like them they campaign for them but it's it's just all feeling like broadcast in the 2000 2010 tens.

8:10I have a question on the HBO front, since you're talking about it, because I think when you say something like Apple is the new HBO, there's two company services you're mentioning there, right? There's the Apple part, and the implication is they now make the best, most premium, star-driven stuff on TV, which is something that we can all debate. Then there's the HBO side of it, and HBO's counter to this is always we're still HBO, we make the best shows, look, year after year, we get the most Emmy nominations. We either win the first or second most Emmys. But there is a school of thought that HBO has gone a little more mainstream, slightly less premium.

8:48You look, their big winner this year is The Pit, which is basically a broadcast TV show, but zhuzhed up a little bit as an HBO show. They've got a Harry Potter show coming.

8:57Matt Belloni:No, I've been harping on this for years. They do a lot of IP. They've got a Big Bang spinoff right now. They're doing lots of this library IP stuff. lanterns. And do you think that that, because that's obviously a sound business decision, right? There is an audience for these shows and HBO is executing them well. Do you think that it, but does that allow for this kind of Apple comparison because people don't see HBO as quite as prestige as they did or is that BS? You know, it's an interesting question and I have raised that with Casey Boyes and he will always point to stuff like the Penguin, which is both it is ip exploitation and prestige that wins emmys and hbo has been able to do that in a way that like say disney has kind of not where they got a big splashy alien show on fx but it doesn't win emmys and i do think that the priorities of hbo max are somewhat at odds because once they tried to make the best shows, now they're trying to satisfy the corporate parent and produce shows based on existing properties and make the good shows.

10:10Matt Belloni:And sometimes it crosses over. A lot of times it doesn't. And I think they're okay with that as long as they can keep that Emmy number high. And what we're seeing, at least this year, is their nomination number was great. But if you get a show like Widow's Bay that goes on a heater or the studio last year, you can see that hierarchy flip and they're going to have to settle for second place this year. Last time they settled for second place, I believe, was behind FX and the HBO line was, let's see what happens. Let's see if they can follow it up. And they were correct that FX did not immediately follow it up.

10:44But Apple has been on a different trajectory. So I guess we'll see what they have next year and whether just year after year it's going to be it's now going to be Apple versus HBO.

10:53Matt Belloni:And we're not even talking about the business of these services, because obviously that HBO strategy serves the business. Whereas the Apple TV strategy, we're still unclear what the business actually is for Apple TV. The business might just be that John Ternus has a good time on Emmy night and agrees to keep funding the Hollywood experiment. but making these shows and campaigning them is not cheap. And I do think Widow's Bay is going to get a big bump out of this. And maybe they can parlay that into turning this into a hit. Well, it'd be like Severance, right? Severance was a very small show that popped huge for its second season.

11:33Matt Belloni:And we'll see what happens with the studio. But I bet when the studio returns, the numbers will be much better than the first season because of the awards attention, in part because of the awards attention maybe long drop yeah big drop off and still a very niche show but i know you you know you're biased because you're probably gonna have you're gonna be in four episodes of season two i am very biased on that one um the netflix question yeah are we prepared to say netflix had a bad year at the emmys 16 total wins yeah only three last night yeah one of it's it's worth showing in a little while right it's but but where does this go in the in the larger netflix narrative right now from like 2016 to 2020 or maybe let's say it's the house of cards from 2013 to 2020 netflix was pretty dead set on becoming the top dog at the emmys year after year after year and i think it was in either 18 or 19 that netflix it was the one time netflix finally got more nominations than hbo and this was sort of hell freezing over the sign that um you know that the insane had taken over the asylum pick your crappy metaphor.

12:42And their priorities change. To your point about what these other services do, Netflix still wants to have that prestige, but they're more interested in having a service that a lot of people watch. And so they want to have the prestige sprinkled in, right? They have the Diplomat, which gets a bunch of nominations and got a couple wins. They have Beef, which gets a bunch of nominations. Would they like more? Do they want to have those top shows of their be getting as many nominations as the HBO and Apple shows? Absolutely. And some of that is just cyclical. We've talked a lot this year about how this has sort of not been a great year for Netflix.

13:18Now, some of this traces back into last year, which was a good one. But even last year, their biggest shows, you know, Stranger Things and Squid Game have never been Emmy magnets.

13:28Matt Belloni:Stranger Things was, well, they both were, but they didn't get those big wins. Right. And both shows, we should say, both shows have scored Emmy noms in the past. They get nominated, but it's not like The Pit. They're not The Crown. Or even The Pit, which is a fairly conventional but well-executed show that gets the most nominations, wins Best Drama, and a show like... That's just a huge overall win for HBO. That is not easily replicable. Although I'm sure Netflix will try with a bunch of procedural doctor, hospital, cop shows. But this larger narrative about Netflix, like, should they be worried that this push into lower value podcasts, short form content, trying to pump the engagement with this kind of low hanging fruit, that that is hurting or taking focus away from the quote unquote quality shows?

14:28why do we spend a bunch of time talking about it was a down year for netflix when they still got i think the second most nominations and third most wins of any network and as you recounted earlier you have all of these other companies whether it's disney nbc universal paramount

14:49Matt Belloni:amazon that are never in the top three yeah but but they don't play in that that schoolyard as much and netflix submits the most shows they have the most content they have a dedicated you know complete campaign army out there trying to win these awards that's why we hold them to a higher standard disney definitely plays in that game because that's like the whole reason that's the whole reason for fx to exist it's the whole in a lot of ways we're going to talk about them their amazon i would argue is not that different from netflix in that they want it but it is not the primary focus. And I'm sure Taylor Sheridan and Paramount, even if they're publicly dismissive, would love to see Yellowstone and all of the Sheridan-verse get enough.

15:37Matt Belloni:Oh, they do. And they do campaign. I mean, Taylor doesn't himself, but all the actors do. I mean, there were Landman events during the FYC season. Sure. And they were very pissed when he got shut out again. But it just is what it is. Again, the stratification, those are considered like CBS shows now. They're the equivalent of NCIS and Criminal Minds were back in the day. They're just not considered prestigious, even though they got huge movie stars in them. Would you not consider some of the Netflix shows to essentially be CBS shows? Yeah, they are. But Netflix positions them in a way and campaigns them pretty hard to get them taken more seriously.

16:21Matt Belloni:And sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Listen, people complain that Beef season two was just not. very good. I was surprised it got as many nominations as it did. Yeah, exactly. And certainly wasn't as watched as the first season. So, you know, you, this happens, you get a couple stinkers or shows that don't live up to the promise. And all of a sudden your Emmys campaign is like, I'm sure FX thought that alien earth from Noah Hawley would be an Emmy show. Right. It wasn't. And it did fine on the service. And that's the problem. So let's go, let's go to that narrative the disney narrative because if fx is the searchlight of television and they want prestige and awards and if they have hits as well that's good how excusable is it to not be a player at the emmys this is two years in a row really zero on the primetime show for disney last night They got 15 total, but the bear didn't do much.

17:22Matt Belloni:And the Ryan Murphy show, Love Story, which back in the day, that would have been an Emmys magnet. This year, it got a casting award at the Creative Arts. Why do you think it wasn't? I just think that the shine is off Ryan Murphy. He's done so much schlock that it's not considered prestigious necessarily anymore. Got it. So it's sort of the same argument you were making with Netflix, where they've got all this other stuff. And so because I because when we were talking about it, I would also show like that. If the perception of Netflix were slightly different, I think maybe a show like The Diplomat would win more.

17:55And it's still one, you know, Allison Janney still win one because the television Academy loves her.

17:59Matt Belloni:Yeah, I know. But and but you could do that. You can cast your shows with people who win every time. And sometimes it works. I mean, look what Hacks did this year where they loaded up with guest stars and loaded up with, you know, supporting stuff and shot in Paris. and it still didn't win them the top Emmys. Hacks did not do as well as people thought it might. But with FX, I don't know. If I'm John Landgraf there, like, yes, he's got another season of Shogun coming, but FX can't just be the Shogun network when it comes to awards. Well, but we, I mean, we talked about this over the weekend with Matthew Greenfield from Searchlight.

18:37I think Furious will be a major player at the awards next year.

18:39Matt Belloni:I agree. I love that show. Yeah. It's a really good show. very topical they had Emmy Rossum on the Emmys last night I don't know if it's going to win because there's a long time to go between now and then, it's a year away but I would imagine that that will be a show that is seen as a contender on Emmy night but that's not FX, that's straight Hulu I know it doesn't matter it's all kind of the same but Disney does have separate fiefdoms producing these shows so there is supposed to be a stamp of quality that comes with the FX brand. And if you looked last night, the biggest contender was probably Paradise.

19:20Matt Belloni:That's a Hulu show. I think if you're Josh DiMauro and you are looking at FX, you generally are going to give John Landgraf kind of leeway on the ups and downs over a couple of years. I don't think you're going to have a couple of years where you're not contenders at the Emmys and say, sorry, you're not getting it done anymore. Especially if you're making shows that are still popular. And I think that's certainly one of the questions, right? Love Story seemed to do well. Some of the other, you know, I think Alien Earth did alright. They're not also producing a huge volume of shows. Right. And that would be Landgraab's argument, is that he's just doing a few shows a year, bespoke stuff, finds its audience for the most part, and the Emmys, it's a whim.

20:09Matt Belloni:Sometimes they connect, sometimes they don't. Right. But part of the narrative of FX has always been that they have the ability to break through in the awards race. And around town, when you're recruiting talent, it does matter the ability to get awards. Yeah, it does. And we have seen, I mean, the arrival of Netflix and to some extent, Amazon and Hulu basically killed Showtime and Starz and AMC, right? HBO survived and FX survived, right? Those were the sort of the two prestige outlets of the cable era that remain prestige outlets. but FX is definitely on shakier footing than HBO because it is now a sub-brand, right?

20:54In a way where HBO is still in the title of the app. Even if it's called HBO Max, you still have the HBO there. FX is, it's a tile and that makes it a little bit weaker.

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23:32Matt Belloni:The interesting thing is FX bid on Widow's Bay. I was talking to people last night at the parties about the origin of Widow's Bay. And it goes against the narrative of Apple TV, which is another topic we should talk about, in that it was developed by Katie Dippold. She had this script in her closet for like 15 years and packaged up and they got Hiro Mirai to do it as director and they took it out. and FX was interested, but Apple bought it in the room, agreed to a series commitment and there was no star attached, which is very unlike Apple. They agreed to make this show. It was sort of a leap of faith.

24:17Matt Belloni:They agreed to make this kind of unconventional show with an untested showrunner and Katie Dippold. They were very confident in Hiro Morai who'd done Atlanta and a bunch of other shows, but they put Matthew Reese in this show way later it was a straight casting which the knock on Apple is that they are star fuckers and won't do anything unless there is a massive star attached they agreed to make this show without a star well and they got the kind you know they got the effusive thank you from Katie Dippold last night at the Emmys that was the type of thing you normally hear for HBO which is you know thank you for taking it or FX or any of these networks.