Can YouTube Predict the Emmy Winners?

The Emmy Awards will arrive on September 22nd, but if YouTube is to be believe, there will be very few surprises in the major categories. ZEFR has attempted to predict the winners by ranking each nominee in terms of official YouTube views, fan YouTube views, and engagement.

In many of these major categories the show or actor with the most YouTube views is clear cut. For Best Actor in a Drama, Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad is more than 12 million views ahead of his nearest competition, and Scandal‘s Kerry Washington is pacing her field in both views and the combination of likes, dislikes, and comments on official and fan YouTube videos (which ZEFR calls “fan engagement”).

As for the series themselves, Breaking Bad should be running away with the YouTube field thanks to its 104 million views across official and fan views. However, the critically acclaimed drama has run into the Gregor Clegane-sized obstacle that is Game of Thrones. The HBO smash hit has rung up 276 million YouTube views, far more than all of its Best Drama competitors combined. Of course, this is one area where the results will almost certainly differ from ZEFR’s findings. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will probably reward Breaking Bad one last time before the AMC series goes off the air for good.

It is also worth noting that, among Best Drama nominees, House of Cards has the fewest YouTube views. Clearly, selling a show entirely to an Internet-savvy crowd does not guarantee an online audience. It’s either that, or Netflix is removing fan videos en masse to direct viewers away from its competitor.

With 111 million views, The Big Bang Theory has a similarly decisive hold on the Best Comedy category. With 30 Rock up for its final Emmys, Alec Baldwin has a strong lead ahead of his fellow comedy actors, while Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are neck and neck in both the Best Actress category and my heart.

You can read ZEFR’s full report here.

No matter how close ZEFR comes to complete clairvoyance, its execs will show up at Social Media Week Los Angeles to discuss how well their findings matched up to the real results. So will these predictions actually hold up? Some choices (like Bryan Cranston) will be correct. After all, if Heisenberg doesn’t take home the gold, he will find and take care of the people responsible for his defeat.