The Emmys: The History of Outstanding Comedies - Introduction


Before the Emmy nominations are announced on Thursday, let's take a look back to the category of best comedy. The first winner of the award was NBC's The Red Skeleton Show in 1952 and the most recent is HBO's Veep. Here's a breakdown of how many wins and nominations each network has had in the category in total since 1952 until now.


Network
Nominations
Wins
NBC
11326
CBS
11022
ABC
5411
HBO
333
FOX
92
Netflix
40
FX
30
Showtime
20
Amazon
20

Update #1: In the 2015-16 Emmy ceremony, ABC and HBO both received 2 nominations. This lifts their total from 52 to 54 and 31 to 33 respectively. HBO also won the Emmy for 'Veep'. This puts them at 3 wins and pushes them ahead of Fox in that category. Netflix got two more nominations and pulled ahead of Showtime and FX. Amazon received one nomination and they now have 2 in total. 


Judging from this data, it seems like NBC, CBS, and ABC are the big winners, though that's not entirely true. All three networks have been around since the beginning while FOX and HBO only just got in the game in the 90's. FX, Showtime, Netflix, and Amazon have all just barely started in the last 5 years, with Amazon getting its first nomination last year. It seems the biggest loser on the list is ABC which has been around since the 50's and has less than half of the nominations of NBC and CBS. Without Modern Family, ABC has only won a total of 6 times, making things look even worse. Recently though, it seems like streaming and cable networks are dominating over the Big 4, in fact, last year only 2 out of the 7 nominees were from the Big 4 networks. Missing from this list is The CW which might get a nomination for Crazy-Ex Girlfriend this year, thus putting it on the map. Next time, we will look at the history of each individual network in the category starting with CBS. They used to be a powerhouse in the category but have since become a weaker force

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