As it prepares to celebrate its ruby anniversary, several category changes are coming to the 40th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, including a new category for Outstanding Culinary Host. Hosts of such food-focused shows as ABC's The Chew now can enter in a separate category than the hosts of ABC's more talk-centric The View, for example.
Travel shows now have their own Outstanding Travel Program category, and hosts of such shows can submit their work for recognition in the Outstanding Travel/Lifestyle Host category.
Additionally, children's show categories -- both animated and live action -- now will be broken out into preschool-age (age 5 and younger) and children's (age 6 and older).
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) on Monday also announced its call for entries and judges and posted a timeline of deadlines.
The first entry deadline is Jan. 14, on which only online paperwork and payment are due. Drama judges need to be registered with NATAS by Jan. 18, while judges in all other categories need to be registered by Jan. 30. Anyone who wants to be considered as a judge needs to be a registered member of NATAS by Jan. 25.
Submissions via DVD are due Feb. 4, with preliminary round judging starting Feb. 11. Drama pre-nominations will be announced on Feb. 27. NATAS' "Blue Ribbon" panels will begin judging submissions on March 27 and finish up three weeks later on April 22. Daytime Emmy nominations will be announced on May 1.
The calendar of deadlines, submission guidelines, rules and procedures and other changes to this year's Daytime Emmy submissions all are available now at www.daytimeemmys.tv.
Where the Daytime Emmys will air this year remains under discussion, and no broadcast date is currently listed on the Daytime Emmys Web site. Last summer, the Daytime Emmys was broadcast on CNN's HLN on Saturday, June 23, with a companion Web component.
