What MTV VMAs can teach the Emmys about COVID-era award shows

Los Angeles Times

The Video Music Awards thought big and made great use of many locations, but the show also made bad use of deploying fake crowd noise and forgetting the other nominees, says Michael Ordoña. "Since virtual awards shows aren’t anchored to a single venue where the big stars are sitting for several hours, they don’t have to be limited by location at all," he says. "The Weeknd opened the show with a startlingly effective presentation of his hit 'Blinding Lights' atop a skyscraper (an actual one, not a virtual one), capped off by fireworks shot from boats on the river below. The Emmy takeaway from this should be that not only performances, but skits and even presenters, could be anywhere." On the other hand, the VMAs felt like a sitcom with its use of canned crowd noise. He adds: "The VMAs telecast chose not to show the nominees as their names were announced. Instead, the moment the winners were announced, they strolled before the camera or videos of their speeches popped up. This gave the strong impression that winners knew in advance, which may have been deemed a necessity by the production but removes the moment of drama that defines awards season: those fleeting seconds of anticipation on the nominees’ faces, followed by the winner’s real-time reaction. One would expect the more-traditional Emmys to stick with trying to televise that moment live, despite the logistical problems it surely creates. At an in-person venue, this might mean a separate holding area for each nominee in a category, complete with camera setup, to adhere to social distancing. (Those not in attendance could appear via video conference.) It’s the element of surprise that comes with the winning (or losing) moment that the VMAs missed entirely." ALSO: This year's VMAs were down 5% last year with 6.4 million across MTV and 12 other ViacomCBS brands.