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Tina Fey stands with the cast and crew of 30 Rock as they accept the award for best comedy series at the Emmy Awards - Source: Reuters -
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As The Office begins its sixth season on NBC, it's easy to forget that the workplace comedy has won just four Emmy Awards.
By contrast, the top shows - once again - at Sunday's Emmy ceremony, 30 Rock and Mad Men have 22 between them. But Office executive producer Ricky Gervais, whose UK show of the same name inspired the US version, is not too upset.
"... I sit at home and wait for the cheques to come through," the comedian said at the event. "Oh yes. Syndication."
And that's what drives the US television business: reruns and ratings, not Emmys. Statuettes do not necessarily translate into major financial success across cable and TV networks in an industry dominated by ratings and advertising dollars.
"I don't think the Emmys mean a whole lot when it comes to impacting advertising sales or aftermarket sales. Big ratings, not industry awards, help drive the aftermarket," said Brian Steinberg, TV editor for Advertising Age.
Unlike the Oscars, where nominations and a best picture win can give a major boost to ticket and DVD sales, the financial impact of an Emmy win is more difficult to track.
Some of the most profitable US TV shows, like the CSI and NCIS crime franchises which were the two most-watched dramas in the 2008-09 season, have never won a drama series Emmy but deliver consistently strong ratings and are sold widely overseas.
"The Emmys are a time-honored validation of recognition among your peers, but they often don't point to commercial success," said Chris Ender, senior vice president of corporate communications at CBS Corp's CBS network.
CSI and NCIS are two high quality and very popular dramas that speak loudly to this. These are both very profitable franchises that generate big audiences and revenue in the States and overseas. That's the ultimate form of validation," Ender said.
CSI drew an average 19 million viewers per episode on CBS last season, has been sold in some 200 markets overseas, and has been widely syndicated.
Ender called it "arguably the most successful television franchise ever in terms of revenue," but declined to give figures.
Ads, audiences roll in for AMC
At AMC however, which is owned by Cablevision Systems Corp, Emmy recognition has reaped dividends for the basic cable channel, which made a big launch into original programming almost four years ago.
Mad Men - an expensive show set in a meticulously re-created 1960s world of advertising - took home three Emmys on Sunday, including a second for best drama series.
Bryan Cranston, star of AMC's "Breaking Bad" won his second Emmy for playing a chemistry teacher with lung cancer who manufactures methamphetamine to pay his medical bills.
Ed Carroll, AMC's chief operating officer, said AMC's ad revenue had increased 50% since 2006. Audiences for Mad Men have doubled in three years to around 2.5 million, the show has attracted major sponsorship from chain retailer Target Corp, and has been sold to 100 nations - all largely on the back of its Emmy success.
Carroll said Cranston's first win in 2008 for Breaking Bad was even more crucial. "Because of the edgy plot, it's not the kind of show that advertisers gravitate to, and in the first season there was a lot of unsold (ad) inventory."
By the second season, ads were sold out and audiences rose 35% to 1.7 million for the March 2009 premiere.
Yet at premium cable channel HBO, a unit of Time Warner Inc, which again dominated the Emmys with a leading 21 awards on Sunday, the pay-off is harder to discern.
"It is not possible to draw a direct correlation. It is too convoluted of a business," said Jeff Cusson, senior vice president of corporate communications at HBO,
Cusson said that HBO doesn't get specific feedback from the third party carriers selling subscriptions on whether people are signing up for the channel's sport, movies or individual program offerings.
"The Emmys are a wonderful opportunity to give credit to the shows and it obviously draws attention. But that on its own is not something where you can directly draw a correlation between one price and another on any of the back end measurements," he said referring to overseas licensing, DVD sales and other revenue.
"It would be hypothetical to speculate how much awards do or don't do for an (HBO) show," Cusson said.
