69th Primetime Emmy Awards Nominees Revealed

The nominations for the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards were announced Thursday morning and a handful of new shows like Westworld, The Handmaid’s Tale, This Is Us, Feud: Bette and Joan and Big Little Lies all scored big.

Overall, Saturday Night Live and Westworld led the way with 22 total nominations, followed by Stranger Things and Feud with 18 each.  This Is Us totaled 11.

Veep star Anna Chlumsky and former Criminal Minds star Shemar Moore announced the nominations from the Wolf Theatre in the Saban Media Center in North Hollywood, California.

Moore had a little surprise at the end for his co-announcer. An envelope was brought on to the stage to reveal that Chlumsky was nominated yet again for the fifth straight year.

"So, you’re like the Meryl Streep of TV," Moore joked.

Comedian Stephen Colbert is slated to host this year's Emmy Awards, which will air Sunday, September 17.

Below are the nominees in the top categories:

Drama Series
Better Call Saul
The Crown
House of Cards
This Is Us
Stranger Things
Westworld
The Handmaid’s Tale

'Better Call Saul' Renewed For Third Season on AMC

AMC and Sony Pictures Television announced today the renewal of primetime drama Better Call Saul for a third season. The prequel to the award-winning series Breaking Bad, "Saul" will return with a ten-episode season, helmed by showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. The series is executive produced by Gilligan, Gould, Mark Johnson , Melissa Bernstein and Breaking Bad alum Thomas Schnauz.

"What Vince, Peter, Bob and the entire team have accomplished with Better Call Saul is truly rare and remarkable. They have taken one of the most iconic, immersive and fan-obsessive (in the best possible way) shows in television history and created a prequel that stands on its own," said Charlie Collier, president of AMC, SundanceTV and AMC Studios. "Watching Jimmy McGill's thoughtful, melodic and morally flexible transformation into Saul Goodman is entertaining and delighting millions of fans, whether their starting point was Breaking Bad or not. This series has its own feel, pace and sensibility and we can't wait to see what this incredibly talented group comes up with next in season three."

"It's been an extraordinary show that lives up to its predecessor," said Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, presidents of programming and production for Sony Pictures Television. "Vince, Peter, Bob and the team are delivering brilliant storytelling and we're proud to have AMC as our partner for another well-earned season."

Better Call Saul was nominated for seven 2015 Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Jonathan Banks, and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drams Series for Bob Odenkirk, who also received SAG and Golden Globe nominations. The four episode live+3 ratings averages for season two are 4.4 million viewers per episode, including 2.7 million adults 25-54 and 2.5 million adults 18-49.

Better Call Saul is set six years before Saul Goodman meets Walter White. When we meet him, the man who will become Saul Goodman is known as Jimmy McGill, a small-time lawyer searching for his destiny and hustling to make ends meet. Working alongside and often against Jimmy is "fixer" Mike Erhmantraut, a beloved character first introduced in Breaking Bad. The series will track Jimmy's transformation into a man who puts the criminal in "criminal lawyer."

2015 TCA Awards Winners List: 'Empire' Named Program of the Year

Empire creator Lee Daniels accepted the award for Program of the
Year at the 31st Annual TCA Awards on Saturday night.

FOX's primetime soap Empire has been named Program of the Year by the Television Critics Association. The TCA handed out its 31st annual awards at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles Saturday night, in a ceremony hosted by James Corden, host of CBS' The Late Late Show.

Below is a complete list of TCA Awards winners:

Program of the Year
Empire (Fox)

Outstanding New Program
Better Call Saul (AMC)

67th Primetime Emmy Awards Nominations Revealed: 7 Series Compete For Outstanding Drama

Cat Deeley and Uzo Aduba announced the major nominations for the 67th Primetime Emmys on Thursday morning from the Pacific Design Center.

Game of Thrones led the pack with an impressive 24 nods, and in close second was American Horror Story: Freak Show with 20.

Check out a list of the major nominees below:

Outstanding Drama Series
Better Call Saul
Downton Abbey
Game of Thrones
Homeland
House of Cards
Mad Men
Orange Is the New Black

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Kyle Chandler, Bloodline
Jeff Daniels, The Newsroom
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
Liev Schrieber, Ray Donovon
Kevin Spacey, House of Cards

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Claire Danes, Homeland
Viola Davis, How to Get Away with Murder
Taraji P. Henson, Empire
Tatiana Maslany, Orphan Black
Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men
Robin Wright, House of Cards

Watch the Trailer and a Sneak Peek Scene from 'Better Call Saul'

Bob Odenkirk stars in Better Call Saul.

Better Call Saul debuts with a two-night premiere on AMC, Sunday, February 8 at 10 p.m. ET/PT and Monday, February 9 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

Starring Breaking Bad actor Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman, the cast of Better Call Saul cast includes Jonathan Banks (Breaking Bad, Wiseguy) as "fixer" Mike Erhmantraut, Michael McKean (This is Spinal Tap) as Chuck, Rhea Seehorn (Franklin & Bash, House of Lies) as Kim, Patrick Fabian (Big Love, Grey's Anatomy) as Hamlin and Michael Mando (Orphan Black, The Killing) as Nacho - characters that will represent both legitimate and illegitimate sides of the law.

Catch up with your favorite characters with this exclusive sneak peek from Better Call Saul. Don't miss the two-night series premiere of Better Call Saul, starting Sun., February 8th at 10/9c, with the second episode airing Mon., February 9th at 10/9c.

Watch the trailer.

NEWS: Why TV Is Dead, Erika Slezak, Anne Kirkbride, Chandra Wilson, Stephen Root, Meg Ryan

Forbes: Why Television Is Dead
Online video dollars had been coming from online budgets until about a year ago. Initially, marketers were saying, 'I'm not willing to move my dollars out of television. This is not a proven medium for me. Therefore, I’m [only] willing to move my online dollars – some of which I know exactly what I'm getting when I spend it, just like I do on television. Some of it I don’t necessarily know what I’m getting for it, or it’s experimental, or I’m doing it for objectives that might be secondary or tertiary – I’ll play around with those dollars.'.”

The jump we’re about to experience, from 2013 to 2014 media dollars represents mainstream media buyers pointing a firehose of new money at the emerging web video creation market. In 2013, 20 brands. Competitrack’s Online Video Ad Tracking service reported, spent more than $10 million. Estimates from eMarketer indicate that US digital video ad spending will nearly double in only four years, climbing from $4.14 billion this year to $8.04 billion in 2016.

ONE LIFE TO LIVE's Erika Slezak" 'I was hired to act. Not to make demands, to bitch, or write.'
"I would ask questions, but there were only two times when I said 'I can't do this.' When I signed on to the show, I was hired to act. Not to make demands, to bitch, or write. As an actress, my job is always the same: make the audience believe. If I do that, I have done my job."

AMC Network Announces 2014 Programming Schedule: TURN Premieres April 6, MAD MEN Returns April 13

AMC today announced key 2014 programming dates for new and returning scripted and unscripted series. The network's newest drama, TURN - a spy thriller about the untold story of America's first spy ring during the Revolutionary War - will kick off on Sunday, April 6 at 9 p.m. ET with a 90-minute series premiere. One week later, on Sunday, April 13 at 10 p.m. ET, the highly-anticipated first half of the final season of MAD MEN will launch.

Summer 2014 will heat up with the June premiere of HALT AND CATCH FIRE, which captures the rise of the PC era in the early 1980s, during which an unlikely trio - a visionary, an engineer and a prodigy - take staggering personal and professional risks in the race to build a computer that will change the world. Later in the summer will bring the season four roll-out of the AMC western HELL ON WHEELS, which grew to an average audience of 3.3 million viewers (live plus three days of time shifting) in its move to Saturday nights in 2013. TURN and HALT AND CATCH FIRE are produced by AMC Studios and both series will be distributed internationally through Entertainment One (eOne) Television.

BREAKING BAD Spin-off BETTER CALL SAUL Coming to Netflix Streaming Members Globally in 2014

Netflix Inc. and Sony Pictures Television today announced BETTER CALL SAUL, the highly-anticipated spin-off of BREAKING BAD, will be available exclusively to streaming members in Europe and Latin America shortly after its airing in the U.S, beginning in 2014.

In the U.S. and Canada, the complete first season of "Saul" will be available to Netflix members after its season finale on AMC Networks. The deal makes Netflix the exclusive subscription television service in all its territories for "Saul," as it is in certain territories for the recently concluded BREAKING BAD.

BREAKING BAD Spinoff BETTER CALL SAUL Will Be A Prequel

AMC and Sony Pictures Television confirmed today that they have reached a licensing agreement for a spinoff of Vince Gilligan's landmark AMC/SPT series BREAKING BAD. As conceived, the new series is based on the show's popular Saul Goodman character with the working title BETTER CALL SAUL. Plans call for Saul to be a one-hour prequel that will focus on the evolution of the popular Saul Goodman character before he ever became Walter White's lawyer.