HBO just crushed the Emmys – here's the secret to its success
In a year crowded with prestige TV, HBO once again proved why it's the heavyweight champion of awards season.
The network, along with its streaming sibling HBO Max, just scored a record-breaking 142 Emmy nominations — its highest total ever, and enough to surpass Netflix with its 121 nominations to reclaim the top spot. What really matters in the long run, of course, is actual wins, but HBO's big pile of nods nevertheless has plenty to say about the network behind it all.
Today's Top Deals
XGIMI Prime Day deals feature the new MoGo 4 and up to 42% off smart projectors
Best deals: Tech, laptops, TVs, and more sales
Best Ring Video Doorbell deals
HBO's recognition this year is a product, first and foremost, of a smart mix of both established hits and buzzy new titles. The Penguin, for example, racked up 24 nominations (second only to Apple's Severance), while The White Lotus followed with 23, The Last of Us landed 16, and Hacks and The Pitt brought in 14 and 13 respectively.
This kind of lineup certainly isn't accidental — it's the result of a carefully calibrated strategy that leans into bold storytelling, creator-driven projects, and a willingness to bet on talent. Anyone with an even passing familiarity with HBO no doubt understands that it's a place where prestige is about more than aesthetics. It's about trusting the creative talent, whether that means letting Mike White get weirder than ever with the newest season of The White Lotus or adapting a video game (The Last of Us) with emotional depth and scale.
'These Emmy nominations highlight the exceptional craftsmanship and storytelling that define HBO Max,' HBO chairman and CEO Casey Bloys said in a statement. 'From The Pitt and Noah Wyle's standout recognition to Somebody Somewhere's first nomination for its final season, it's incredible to see such a wide range of programming and creative talent celebrated across our slate.'
It also helps that HBO's brand still means something. Viewers associate it with quality. Awards voters do, too. And while its rivals keep giving viewers more of the same algorithm-friendly slop, HBO keeps its lineup tight and curated — no filler, just the kind of releases that build on critical and viewer momentum.
The result is continued cultural relevance, and a trophy case that keeps getting fuller. In an increasingly crowded streaming landscape, HBO's big Emmy year is a reminder that quality, not quantity, still wins. A simple lesson, but one that too many of its rivals still clearly do not understand.
Don't Miss: Today's deals: Nintendo Switch games, $5 smart plugs, $150 Vizio soundbar, $100 Beats Pill speaker, more
More Top Deals
Memorial Day security camera deals: Reolink's unbeatable sale has prices from $29.98
See the
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
People Are Sharing The Things From The '90s And '00s That No One Born After 2005 Will Understand
Recently, we asked the BuzzFeed Community, "What's something from the 90s/early 2000s that someone born after 2005 would never understand?" Here are 50 of their most nostalgic responses: Some responses are from this post as well. 1."The joy of going to the video rental store on Friday nights!" —ellie4me 2."The stressfulness, rage, and sheer insanity of being a parent to a Tamagotchi." —smartgoose16 3."Freaking out that you might get arrested for downloading Limewire and/or Frostwire." —smartgoose16 4."The Motorola RAZR was a huge deal stylistically and technologically. The fact that the pink ones were exclusive to one phone carrier — I had to buy one from overseas, where carrier-locked phones aren't a thing, and it was a different shade of pink than was available in the US. It was tiny, sleek, and internet-capable (but for the love of all things holy, don't go on the internet, think of the bill)." —tiktokism 5."The hype of the BlackBerry Curve phone." —jadewright 6."Having to watch the news to see if your school is canceled for a snow day." —myneishac 7."Phones with cords! Why, I ask, why?!" —penguinlover720 8."Calling collect and yelling your message to the person you're calling at the point you were supposed to say your name, then hanging up before anyone was charged." —slickninja 9."Netflix being a DVD-mailing service." —sleepingbubble74 10."Watching High School Musical, not on DVD. It was never really about the movie; it was all in the lead-up. The premiere of those movies was a social event and a cultural phenomenon for us growing up. I didn't have cable TV, so I had to arrange watching at my neighbor's house, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. There was a bunch of buildup in the programming beforehand, and a countdown clock, and you'd be sitting with your eyes plastered to the TV sometimes days ahead of time so you wouldn't miss any of the exclusive trailers or bonus crossovers or promotional materials. Back then, there was still a lot of sprinting to use the bathroom between short commercial breaks. The hype didn't die down just because the movie had aired, oh no. There were High School Musical-themed birthday parties, posters, t-shirts, etc.. It was everywhere, and everyone loved it. I still do!" —tacobaco 11."I was talking to my dad today about this. I'm pretty sure kids today have probably never seen snowy/bad reception on a TV or static from the radio." —kevinhicks77 12."The Tinkerbell Pixie Hollow computer game." —Anonymous 13."Junk food vending machines at school." —almanmark720 14."We were watching regular TV the other day, and my kid asked us to pause the show. I had to explain that it doesn't work that way when you're not streaming." —francesjoys 15."Hit Clips… I miss Hit Clips." —morgandemkey 16."There was a great show on the WB network called Grosse Pointe that was a satire of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Dawson's Creek. It was only something like 12 episodes before it was cancelled. Supposedly, it hit Aaron Spelling too close to home." —janes4c411b247 17."The 2002 limited edition wild berry Spider-Man Pop-Tarts. To this day, I have not found a Pop-Tart that even comes close to how yummy (and exciting, because Spider-Man had just come out) those Pop-Tarts were. SMH, good things never last." —haleeraeevans 18."The scene era." —smartgoose16 19."Not having a computer in the home, and if you did have one, not having the internet. I didn't have a computer until I was in college, and in the summers when I was home, I was without internet unless I wanted to pay by the minute for it. We also didn't use computers much in school unless it was a business class, like typing or programming. We would write research papers by hand, and then we'd have a few days before they were due when the whole English class would go to the computer lab to type them up for submission. Even those computers didn't have internet, so much of our research was done at the library." —matchwolf 20."Having to wait until Saturday mornings to watch cartoons all morning, and you didn't have a way to custom choose the schedule for which cartoons to watch. You watched what was available on broadcast TV or cable." —jealouskitten151 21."If you lived in a small town, you had to go to the restaurant to get your food. There was no food delivery service, not even from Chinese restaurants, just the occasional pizza joint." —jealouskitten151 22."I recently found out TV Guide is still a thing when I got an actual mailer for it a couple of weeks ago." —jgcromwell 23."Walt Disney World used to send out VHS tapes with little features on the parks as a way to encourage people to visit. My sister and I used to watch them over and over again because we lived in PA, and we weren't a vacation-style family. Eventually, though, my parents did feel guilty and took us to Disney World. I do feel bad because one of my only memories of that trip is me being such a small child that when I sat on the toilet, I folded in half and fell in." —monikap6 24."Don't even get me started on having to memorize your friends' phone numbers because there were no smartphones to store them. Simpler times!" —trendycake45 25."Disney Channel used to play movies every night at 8 p.m. I still sometimes hear, 'Let's watch a Disney Channel movie.' It's not like streaming was around, so you had to be ready with a VHS tape if you wanted to ever rewatch it. The Thirteenth Year was a favorite at our household." —monikap6 26."Burning a CD. I asked my daughter what she thought it meant, and she guessed I was destroying something. Quite the opposite. Those custom CDs were romantic gifts, the soundtrack to rolling through town/backroads, and even a way to celebrate without a DJ. Now, the idea of a playlist capped at 16 songs sounds foreign." —acidictooth778 27."Trying to burn the perfect mix CD from LimeWire without crashing your computer or downloading a virus… now that was a skill." —trendycake45 28."Salsa Fries from Andy Capp." —Anonymous, 36, MN 29."Senior from 1994 here. Someone born after 2005 would never understand why, in the '90s, if you were in a hurry or had a set time to be somewhere, you did not drive the main street of your town on a Friday or Saturday night. You drove on the outskirts of town to get through faster. (Because all the teens were driving in circles or drag racing.)" —abourque 30."Waiting until after 8 pm to call long distance. Or, getting your first cellphone and having only 60 minutes of 'talk time' per month. If you went over, you had to pay per minute. Same with texting when it became more common." —laurachytka 31."Being told to come home when the street lights turn on." —slickninja 32."'Playing' the demo version of arcade games in the laundromat." —smartgoose16 33."Writing a text using only numbers. I was trying to explain this to my daughter the other day — to write out 'hey,' you had to press 4 twice, 3 twice, and 9 three times." —hovingkaitlin 34."Having to buy film for your camera. Having to be selective over what photos you take because you only get 24-36 frames. Forgetting to get the film developed for months or years." —lesliepl0310 35."Plug-in CD players. You would put a tape into the 'tape player' and the plug into the cigarette lighter, and you would be able to listen to CDs." —jgcromwell 36."On Nickelodeon, that chimp with three eyes that used to say, 'Hi, I'm Paul!' during commercial breaks and wave!" —Anonymous, 30, Niagara Falls, NY 37."Waiting for the radio station to play your new favorite pop song by Britney or *NSYNC so you can record it with a cassette tape!" —dazzlingmagician324 38."Making plans with friends to meet at the mall with no guarantee that they would show up and no way to contact them to see if they were on the way." —myneishac 39."Having a large cellular phone that came in a black leather-like bag for only your car. One of the early cell phones was hooked to your vehicle's battery." —marvelousfan911 40."Having to stop a random person to ask what time it is." —slickninja 41."Riding your bike to a friend's house and knocking on their door to see if they could come out. Or calling someone's house phone and having to interact with their family member before getting them on the phone." —slickninja 42."Being on the Internet, probably playing a flash game, and your mom telling you to get off the internet because she has to make a phone call, and then waiting around for her to finish." —hobbitgirl96 43."Buying disposable cameras for big events, and then the anticipation of getting them all developed." —bravechinchilla277 44."Pagers and payphones being the only means of communication. In fact, in high school, you were considered cool if you had a pager." —angelamastin82 45."There was a show on Disney Channel called Naturally, Sadie about a girl who loved nature. I remembered its existence, but I swear I thought it lasted a season, maybe, because I can only somewhat recall one episode (she notices that there are no baby pictures of her older brother but tons of her, and at the end, her mom reveals that they had a housefire before she was born or something), but according to Wikipedia, there were three seasons!?!" —rachelo4ef37e40d 46."Phone companies charging PER text message." —amandav4218e9747 47."Kissing Fruit lip gloss." —Anonymous, 18, Houston, TX 48."Buying a 'phone card' so you could make long-distance calls home from camp on a landline or payphone and have the cost covered in advance. There was always a stupidly long string of numbers to punch in, and you had to do it at the right time in the right order, or you would have to hang up and start all over. You bought the cards in increments of time (20 min, 45 min, 1 hr, etc). I remember having thoughts like, 'There's a dance on Friday, and I know I'll want to talk about it for a long time, so I should probably keep Monday's convo under five minutes!' Different times, man." —melc40e454224 49."The electronic pocket dictionary things. They were about the size of a calculator, and they can't have been expensive because I think I had one." —gettysburgdressmaker finally: "'You have died of dysentery.'" —kimmiethiel What's something you miss from the '90s or early '00s? Tell us all about it in the comments or in the anonymous comments box below! Note: Some responses have been edited for length/clarity.
Buzz Feed
17 minutes ago
- Buzz Feed
'90s And '00s Things Gen Alpha Won't Understand
Recently, we asked the BuzzFeed Community, "What's something from the 90s/early 2000s that someone born after 2005 would never understand?" Here are 50 of their most nostalgic responses: "The joy of going to the video rental store on Friday nights!" —ellie4me "The stressfulness, rage, and sheer insanity of being a parent to a Tamagotchi." —smartgoose16 "Freaking out that you might get arrested for downloading Limewire and/or Frostwire." —smartgoose16 "The Motorola RAZR was a huge deal stylistically and technologically. The fact that the pink ones were exclusive to one phone carrier — I had to buy one from overseas, where carrier-locked phones aren't a thing, and it was a different shade of pink than was available in the US. It was tiny, sleek, and internet-capable (but for the love of all things holy, don't go on the internet, think of the bill)." —tiktokism "The hype of the BlackBerry Curve phone." —jadewright "Having to watch the news to see if your school is canceled for a snow day." —myneishac "Phones with cords! Why, I ask, why?!" —penguinlover720 "Calling collect and yelling your message to the person you're calling at the point you were supposed to say your name, then hanging up before anyone was charged." —slickninja "Netflix being a DVD-mailing service." —sleepingbubble74 "Watching High School Musical, not on DVD. It was never really about the movie; it was all in the lead-up. The premiere of those movies was a social event and a cultural phenomenon for us growing up. I didn't have cable TV, so I had to arrange watching at my neighbor's house, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. There was a bunch of buildup in the programming beforehand, and a countdown clock, and you'd be sitting with your eyes plastered to the TV sometimes days ahead of time so you wouldn't miss any of the exclusive trailers or bonus crossovers or promotional materials. Back then, there was still a lot of sprinting to use the bathroom between short commercial breaks. The hype didn't die down just because the movie had aired, oh no. There were High School Musical-themed birthday parties, posters, t-shirts, etc.. It was everywhere, and everyone loved it. I still do!" —tacobaco "I was talking to my dad today about this. I'm pretty sure kids today have probably never seen snowy/bad reception on a TV or static from the radio." —kevinhicks77 "The Tinkerbell Pixie Hollow computer game." —Anonymous "Junk food vending machines at school." —almanmark720 "We were watching regular TV the other day, and my kid asked us to pause the show. I had to explain that it doesn't work that way when you're not streaming." —francesjoys "Hit Clips… I miss Hit Clips." —morgandemkey "There was a great show on the WB network called Grosse Pointe that was a satire of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Dawson's Creek. It was only something like 12 episodes before it was cancelled. Supposedly, it hit Aaron Spelling too close to home." —janes4c411b247 "The 2002 limited edition wild berry Spider-Man Pop-Tarts. To this day, I have not found a Pop-Tart that even comes close to how yummy (and exciting, because Spider-Man had just come out) those Pop-Tarts were. SMH, good things never last." —haleeraeevans "The scene era." —smartgoose16 "Not having a computer in the home, and if you did have one, not having the internet. I didn't have a computer until I was in college, and in the summers when I was home, I was without internet unless I wanted to pay by the minute for it. We also didn't use computers much in school unless it was a business class, like typing or programming. We would write research papers by hand, and then we'd have a few days before they were due when the whole English class would go to the computer lab to type them up for submission. Even those computers didn't have internet, so much of our research was done at the library." —matchwolf "Having to wait until Saturday mornings to watch cartoons all morning, and you didn't have a way to custom choose the schedule for which cartoons to watch. You watched what was available on broadcast TV or cable." —jealouskitten151 "If you lived in a small town, you had to go to the restaurant to get your food. There was no food delivery service, not even from Chinese restaurants, just the occasional pizza joint." —jealouskitten151 "I recently found out TV Guide is still a thing when I got an actual mailer for it a couple of weeks ago." —jgcromwell "Walt Disney World used to send out VHS tapes with little features on the parks as a way to encourage people to visit. My sister and I used to watch them over and over again because we lived in PA, and we weren't a vacation-style family. Eventually, though, my parents did feel guilty and took us to Disney World. I do feel bad because one of my only memories of that trip is me being such a small child that when I sat on the toilet, I folded in half and fell in." —monikap6 "Don't even get me started on having to memorize your friends' phone numbers because there were no smartphones to store them. Simpler times!" —trendycake45 "Disney Channel used to play movies every night at 8 p.m. I still sometimes hear, 'Let's watch a Disney Channel movie.' It's not like streaming was around, so you had to be ready with a VHS tape if you wanted to ever rewatch it. The Thirteenth Year was a favorite at our household." —monikap6 "Burning a CD. I asked my daughter what she thought it meant, and she guessed I was destroying something. Quite the opposite. Those custom CDs were romantic gifts, the soundtrack to rolling through town/backroads, and even a way to celebrate without a DJ. Now, the idea of a playlist capped at 16 songs sounds foreign." —acidictooth778 "Trying to burn the perfect mix CD from LimeWire without crashing your computer or downloading a virus… now that was a skill." —trendycake45 "Salsa Fries from Andy Capp." —Anonymous, 36, MN "Senior from 1994 here. Someone born after 2005 would never understand why, in the '90s, if you were in a hurry or had a set time to be somewhere, you did not drive the main street of your town on a Friday or Saturday night. You drove on the outskirts of town to get through faster. (Because all the teens were driving in circles or drag racing.)" —abourque "Waiting until after 8 pm to call long distance. Or, getting your first cellphone and having only 60 minutes of 'talk time' per month. If you went over, you had to pay per minute. Same with texting when it became more common." —laurachytka "Being told to come home when the street lights turn on." —slickninja "'Playing' the demo version of arcade games in the laundromat." —smartgoose16 "Writing a text using only numbers. I was trying to explain this to my daughter the other day — to write out 'hey,' you had to press 4 twice, 3 twice, and 9 three times." —hovingkaitlin "Having to buy film for your camera. Having to be selective over what photos you take because you only get 24-36 frames. Forgetting to get the film developed for months or years." —lesliepl0310 "Plug-in CD players. You would put a tape into the 'tape player' and the plug into the cigarette lighter, and you would be able to listen to CDs." —jgcromwell "On Nickelodeon, that chimp with three eyes that used to say, 'Hi, I'm Paul!' during commercial breaks and wave!" —Anonymous, 30, Niagara Falls, NY "Waiting for the radio station to play your new favorite pop song by Britney or *NSYNC so you can record it with a cassette tape!" "Making plans with friends to meet at the mall with no guarantee that they would show up and no way to contact them to see if they were on the way." —myneishac "Having a large cellular phone that came in a black leather-like bag for only your car. One of the early cell phones was hooked to your vehicle's battery." —marvelousfan911 "Having to stop a random person to ask what time it is." —slickninja "Riding your bike to a friend's house and knocking on their door to see if they could come out. Or calling someone's house phone and having to interact with their family member before getting them on the phone." —slickninja "Being on the Internet, probably playing a flash game, and your mom telling you to get off the internet because she has to make a phone call, and then waiting around for her to finish." —hobbitgirl96 "Buying disposable cameras for big events, and then the anticipation of getting them all developed." —bravechinchilla277 "Pagers and payphones being the only means of communication. In fact, in high school, you were considered cool if you had a pager." —angelamastin82 "There was a show on Disney Channel called Naturally, Sadie about a girl who loved nature. I remembered its existence, but I swear I thought it lasted a season, maybe, because I can only somewhat recall one episode (she notices that there are no baby pictures of her older brother but tons of her, and at the end, her mom reveals that they had a housefire before she was born or something), but according to Wikipedia, there were three seasons!?!" —rachelo4ef37e40d "Phone companies charging PER text message." —amandav4218e9747 "Kissing Fruit lip gloss." —Anonymous, 18, Houston, TX "Buying a 'phone card' so you could make long-distance calls home from camp on a landline or payphone and have the cost covered in advance. There was always a stupidly long string of numbers to punch in, and you had to do it at the right time in the right order, or you would have to hang up and start all over. You bought the cards in increments of time (20 min, 45 min, 1 hr, etc). I remember having thoughts like, 'There's a dance on Friday, and I know I'll want to talk about it for a long time, so I should probably keep Monday's convo under five minutes!' Different times, man." —melc40e454224 "The electronic pocket dictionary things. They were about the size of a calculator, and they can't have been expensive because I think I had one." —gettysburgdressmaker And finally: "'You have died of dysentery.'" —kimmiethiel What's something you miss from the '90s or early '00s? Tell us all about it in the comments or in the anonymous comments box below!
CBS News
18 minutes ago
- CBS News
Bridget Everett on how she ended up as "Somebody Somewhere"
Bridget Everett will try to tell you she's not a celebrity in Manhattan, Kansas, but don't believe her. She did grow up here, one of six kids, so there's that. "I just love that it still feels like small-town America," she said. "I come back quite a bit and I visit the same spots." But it was when her HBO show "Somebody Somewhere" was set here in Manhattan, that Everett became a bon fide local legend. The show follows Sam Miller (played by Everett), who moves back to her hometown in her 40s, trying to figure out herself, and life, after the death of her sister. Everett was a writer, producer, and lead actor in the semi-autobiographical series. "I was like, 'Is anybody going to watch this? This is not a cool show!'" she said. "You know, like, it's about friendship. I'm not a top model, you know? I don't want to speak for anybody else in the cast! But I think that's exactly kind of why it works." Unlike her character on the show, who returns home to Manhattan, Kansas, Everett stayed in Manhattan, New York, for years, working mostly as a waitress and using, believe or not, karaoke as her main creative outlet. "My way of connecting with people is through singing," she said. "It kind of always has been, and it's easier for me to unlock and kind of be who I really want to be when I'm singing. Those karaoke performances led to her own, now-legendary cabaret shows at the famed Joe's Pub in New York. Everett's performances are sort of unlike anything you've seen, and so risqué we can't show you much of it here on "Sunday Morning." Everett said, "What's interesting to me is, like, learning about people, and why am I up there with no bra and a low-cut thing with everything flying around? It's part of who I am, and I also kind of do it to understand myself, honestly. I like to talk about my family in this way because my family and I don't talk about it. I don't see a mental health care professional!" And that's the amazing part: Everett's cabaret shows somehow end up being, in part anyway, a meditation on life and grief, including saying goodbye to her father, as well as the loss of her mother, sister, and her beloved dog, Poppy, whom she called the love of her life. "For a while I felt a little bit of shame saying that, because romantic love is kind of what most people aspire to," Everett said. "My life is driven in a different way. She just taught me how to love, and she just cracked my heart open in a way that, like, no other person could." In fact, it was this side of Everett that HBO and the show's creators wanted to highlight – the way we can feel both strong and broken, hopeless and hopeful, all in the same moment. Everett, who writes and performs multiple original songs on the show, says she got her love of music from her mother, Freddie. She also got her sense of humor from her mom, as well as her siblings, including Brock, Brian and Brad, who had given Bridget a piece of feedback: that her acting was improving. "I was being honest," Brad said. "Her acting, especially towards the end, I thought, was authentic. I even teared up on some of that, which is difficult to do when you know your sibling [is] acting. So, you need to separate who you know, and then see her in a character. And have it move you? I think it's a great compliment to her." "Thank you," said Bridget. "You could have just said that in a text." The HBO show features a number of Everett's actual friends and collaborators from New York, including Murray Hill, Mary Catherine Garrison, and, in a star turn, the just Emmy-nominated Jeff Hiller as her best friend, Joel. Though HBO chose not to renew "Somebody Somewhere" for a fourth season, it did win a prestigious Peabody Award, and also picked up an Emmy nomination this season for writing for a comedy series. Everett says the whole thing feels a little surreal: the journey from being somebody somewhere, to somebody who is right where she's supposed to be. "Nothing will ever match this, and it couldn't, but that's okay," she said. "A lot of people don't get the opportunity to have a TV show, to live a life beyond their wildest dreams. And then to get to do it with the people I love? It's why it's taken so long for me to move on and kind of let go. But now I'm just trying to celebrate that I got to do it at all." For more info: Story produced by Aria Shavelson. Editor: Lauren Barnello.
