EXCLUSIVE: A couple of weeks before TV Academy’s Board of Governors is slated to elect a new Chairman, Vice Chair Frank Scherma has emerged as the sole contender to succeed Hayma Washington. We hear Scherma was the only candidate to declare he was running for the post by the deadline this week. The election is slated for Nov. 15.
“We look forward to November 15 when our Board of Governors will officially elect our new officers including the new Chairman,” a spokesperson for the TV Academy said in a statement to Deadline, declining further comment.
RadicalMedia president Scherma, also a board member of the TV Academy Foundation, has producer credits including music documentaries on Metallica (he EP’d Metallica: Some Kind of Monster), Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, Run-D.M.C., Nicki Minaj, Miley Cyrus, Drake and Ed Sheeran; Errol Morris’ Oscar-winning The Fog of War; Broadway’s Shrek the Musical; and IFC TV’s Stan Against Evil.
The TV Academy faced a surprising vacancy this year when current chairman Hayma Washington recently announced that he wouldn’t be seeking a second term. Washington’s two-year run ends December 31, with the new chairman beginning January 1.
Kevin Hamburger ran against Washington in 2016 when he was Vice Chair. For the last two years, he has been on the Foundation board, and we hear he would be running for Treasurer of the Foundation in December.
Among the topics on the agenda for the incoming chairman would be increasing industry diversity, harassment prevention, and how to boost the ratings for the Primetime Emmy Awards. This year’s 70th annual show, which aired on NBC and was hosted by SNL‘s Colin Jost and Michael Che, drew all-time low 10.172 million viewers and a 2.4 rating in adults 18-49.
One issue that will not be on the new chairman’s plate will be an Emmy deal. The TV Academy in August re-upped its eight-year wheel deal with the broadcast networks.
Patrick Hipes contributed to this report.
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