The pace may get slower for some people in August, but for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), it's the equivalent of Christmas season at Macy's. Primetime Emmy nominations were announced July 17 but this week ATAS is mailing out DVDs of nominated programs and performances to voting members. Voting will continue until Aug. 29. DVDs for Creative Arts Emmys were mailed out last week - voting ends Aug. 22. John Leverence, SVP of awards at ATAS calls it the "beginning phase of final judging" which will take some shows and talent from nomination (nice) to winner (better). At this phase members of ATAS volunteer to vote. For the program awards, ATAS solicits members from the entire membership. For individual awards, such as performer, cinematog-rapher or director, volunteers have to be peers in the same craft to vote. Leverence says roughly 800 people will vote for drama categories and another 800 or so for comedy categories. Voters will receive DVDs but a video-on-de-mand Web site set up during the nominating process is still accessible to ATAS members. ATAS for the first time this year had a "for your consideration" site, in addition to mailing out DVDs, which it does every year. A few networks set up similar sites, including Showtime, which kicked off the trend, and is one of the pioneers of modern, aggressive Emmy marketing. Its online videos were streamed some 50,000 times over the past few months, according to Richard Licata, Showtime's EVP of corporate communications.
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