{"id":194684,"date":"2025-10-14T21:03:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T01:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/10\/14\/comedy-is-booming-so-why-arent-the-grammys-emmys-featuring-those-categories-in-prime-time\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T21:03:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T01:03:20","slug":"comedy-is-booming-so-why-arent-the-grammys-emmys-featuring-those-categories-in-prime-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/10\/14\/comedy-is-booming-so-why-arent-the-grammys-emmys-featuring-those-categories-in-prime-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Comedy Is Booming \u2014 So Why Aren\u2019t the Grammys & Emmys Featuring Those Categories in Prime\u00a0Time?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tThese are boom times in comedy. As of Sept. 25, stand-up comics sold 4.9 million tickets to 2,078 live performances reported to Billboard Boxscore, for a total gross of $359.7 million and counting. The major streaming services, such as Netflix, Hulu and HBO, regularly release new comedy specials, and on-demand audio and video streams of comedy content have topped $1.32 billion through Oct. 3.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Jordan<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tThe Best Comedy Specials to Stream Right Now (Critic\u2019s\u00a0Picks)\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tLourdiz Responds to Cyberbullying After Appearing on Cardi B’s Album: ‘Harassment Isn’t Fandom’\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tMichael Archer Jr., D’Angelo & Angie Stone’s Son, Reflects on ‘Rough and Sad Year’ After Losing Both Parents in 7 Months\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tGiven these outsized numbers, many in the business say its time that stand-up specials and albums got more shine from the organizations that give out Grammy and Emmy awards.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cComedy ebbs and it flows, but as of the last few years it\u2019s been having a real boom, and this is an industry that deserves respect,\u201d says stand-up star Iliza Shlesinger,<\/a> whose latest special, A Different Animal<\/a><\/em>, premiered on Amazon Prime in March and is entered for Grammy consideration for best comedy album. \u201cI mean, some of these comics are their own microeconomies. We\u2019re coming to respect podcasting as an industry. We\u2019re respecting influencers. The state of comedy is one of the oldest art forms next to prostitution, and it deserves more respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Iliza<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

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\t\t\t\t\tIliza Shlesinger on The Kelly Clarkson Show.<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWeiss Eubanks\/NBCUniversal via G<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tWith Grammy voting underway \u2014 first-round voting ends Wednesday (Oct. 15) and the final-round voting runs from Dec. 12-Jan. 5 \u2014 the conversation has turned to the Feb. 1 Grammys ceremony and whether the best comedy album category will be featured on the prime-time telecast, or given out during a pre-telecast ceremony which is streamed on Grammy.com.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Recording Academy cycles categories in and out of the main event, and the last time the best comedy album winner was announced on the telecast was 2020, when Dave Chappelle <\/a>won for the recording of his Sticks & Stones <\/em>special.<\/p>\n

\n\tA Recording Academy rep says, \u201cWe don\u2019t know yet what categories will be featured on the telecast this year, nor do we announce that in advance. But all of our 95 categories are always being considered, including best comedy album.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShlesinger says the category more than deserves inclusion in prime time. \u201cAt the end of the day, it is an artist performing an audio art,\u201d she tells Billboard Comedy<\/a><\/em>. \u201cSo, what\u2019s the difference between [stand-up] and a song? If I wrote it, I composed it, I set up the order of the jokes, there is a musicality to it. So it should be presented in prime time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLiving comedy legend Lewis Black<\/a>, who\u2019s been nominated six times in the best comedy album category and won twice, agrees. \u201cComedy is certainly big enough,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that [pre-telecast] afternoon thing is in a glorified auditorium. There is no buffet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBlack says that when he received his first Grammy in 2007 for The Carnegie Hall Performance<\/em>, his award was given out the afternoon of the telecast. \u201cI was irritated by it until \u2014 here\u2019s the kicker \u2014\u00a0you go through a press run afterwards, and I\u2019m behind Chick Corea<\/a> [who won two Grammys that year]. I said, \u2018You\u2019re not on at night?\u2019 He said, \u2018No.\u2019 I said, \u2018You are kidding. I can understand why I\u2019m not on at night, but you\u2019re f\u2014ing Chick Corea.\u2019 Here\u2019s one of the great jazz artists \u2014 an idiom that is one of America\u2019s real contributions to music and art,\u201d Black continues. \u201cAnd they\u2019ve got him in the afternoon with polka and people who read fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Lewis<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

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\t\t\t\t\tLewis Black performs at The Brown Theatre on October 17, 2024 in Louisville, Kentucky.<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStephen J. Cohen\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThe Television Academy also relegates comedy to its two-day pre-telecast Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony, and those in the funny business say it\u2019s additionally frustrating that stand-up specials are lumped into the broad outstanding variety special (pre-recorded) category (and have only been eligible for that since the early 1990s).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe last time a stand-up special won was in 2020, when Chappelle\u2019s Sticks & Stones<\/em> took the honor. Since then, major box-office draws such as Adam Sandler<\/a>, Ali Wong,<\/a> John Mulaney<\/a>, Bill Burr<\/a> and Sarah Silverman<\/a> have lost out to tributes to TV legends Carol Burnett, Dick Van Dyke and Conan O\u2019Brien<\/a>, an Adele <\/a>concert, and a Disney+ Hamilton<\/a><\/em> performance.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe comedians who spoke to Billboard <\/em>stress that they\u2019re not throwing shade at those comedy greats. Rather, they say, the playing field is not level, and stand-up specials should get their own category. \u201cI love Conan, but I\u2019m like, \u2018Wait, these big-event variety and tribute shows have got 12 writers on them, a director, a DP, a list of producers, and everyone\u2019s got their finger in the pie,\u2019\u201d says Bert Kreischer<\/a>, whose 2025 Netflix special Lucky<\/em> is also up for Grammy consideration (and who, staying on brand, did his interview shirtless). \u201cWe deserve our own category \u2014 just stand-up. We write our specials, and quite often we produce them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Bert<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

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\t\t\t\t\tBert Kreischer speaks onstage as Netflix is a Joke presents FYSEE LA Comedy Night at The Comedy Store on May 29, 2025 in West Hollywood, California.<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEmma McIntyre\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been beating this drum for a while,\u201d says Shlesinger. \u201cIt\u2019s apples and oranges. There\u2019s no reason that stand-up specials should be in contention with other types of specials, other than that comedy always gets overlooked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA Television Academy spokesperson says the organization \u201ccontinually evaluates its\u00a0Emmy\u00a0Awards categories for their relevance to our medium\u2019s trends.\u00a0Both the comedy and variety genres have been an important part of\u00a0Emmy\u00a0recognition since the inception of the competition, and the Academy is committed to awarding achievements for comedy and variety as determined by the Academy\u2019s board of governors, in consultation with our members and the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s also not lost on the comedy industry that, while their categories haven\u2019t qualified for prime time, comedians are often the go-to choice to host awards telecasts. Trevor Noah<\/a> has done Grammys duty for the last five years (the 2026 host has not yet been named), and Jon Stewart<\/a>, Garry Shandling and Ellen DeGeneres have all hosted multiple Grammy telecasts as well. Nate Bargatze<\/a>, Kenan Thompson<\/a>, Michael Che<\/a> and Colin Jost<\/a>, and Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> are among the comedians who\u2019ve anchored the Prime Time Emmys, while Nikki Glaser<\/a> and Ricky Gervais helmed the Golden Globes and Chris Rock, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes the Oscars. Adding the awards to the Grammy and Emmy telecasts would attract even more comedians to attend the ceremony, and the winners are almost certain to give entertaining acceptance speeches \u2014 which could goose ratings, which are trending downward in general.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSome of your favorite comics are some of your favorite stars,\u201d Shlesinger says. \u201cSo we should be able to put our faces on prime-time award shows. Comedy is being consumed just as much in popular culture as everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Aller \u00e0 la source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These are boom times in comedy. As of Sept. 25, stand-up comics sold 4.9 million tickets to 2,078 live performances reported to Billboard Boxscore, for a total gross of $359.7 million and counting. The major streaming services, such as Netflix, Hulu and HBO, regularly release new comedy specials, and on-demand audio and video streams of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musique","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}