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 while Scandal’s Kerry Washington has only a slim lead over Bates Motel’s Vera Farmiga, she has almost twice as many likes, dislikes, and comments (which ZEFR calls “fan engagement”) on official and fan YouTube videos.

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.