An Applied Coefficient System to... Movies and TV Series?

First of all, Happy New Year!

(Image: Best Animations)

To start off this year, I am presenting you a rather unique system to determine the season's best in movies and TV based on award shows. I know I've introduced this on my fandom blog, but I thought it's a better idea to introduce this here as well. The main motivation was that I was trying to craft a new system which would override the old system I had whose progress I post on the fandom blog. The old system in question awards "Championship" points in two ways: award shows, where points are given for wins in main categories, acting categories, and technical categories (for movies and TV) in addition to the nominations they receive, then translated into the "Championship" points based on the said wins in total (only those with at least one category win can score point here); and polling competitions, where points are given based on bracket placements and final percentages, usually only involving television shows, and shows outside the eligibility criteria for the system will not be classified for any point.

With the Championship system no longer a feasible method, it was a time to deploy a new one: the Coefficient System, something that would mirror UEFA's ranking system for national and club teams in the region. The system works the same as the old system, with a notable difference being without any championship point whatsoever, and that the points for polling competition finishes will be based on simply the final bracket placement. For award shows, movies and television shows, in addition to actors, nominated in any award will of course receive points, so does award wins in a particular category, with no strings attached to even the losers, meaning that everyone gets to keep their points until the end of the calculation cycle, which would normally end in the last day of the year (December 31 that is). However, there's one catch: prestigious awards will reward more coefficient points than other awards, meaning that, for example, an Emmy-winning series will have absolutely more edge than a Teen Choice-winning series that won 6 or more categories in one go. In the system, I regard both Oscars and Emmys as the top-tier awards for movies and television respectively, upper mid-tier awards being Golden Globes and SAG Awards, and just behind them is Critics' Choice Awards, the mid-tier award in the system. Last but not least the lower-tier awards consisting of MTV TV & Movie Awards, People's Choice Awards, and Teen Choice Awards complete the list, although there will be additional adjustments and additions to the system, I even have thoughts of including BAFTA Awards and TCA Awards as well, which can affect the system in a good way as this first season is meant to be where many adjustments and additions are expected to come to shape the future of this system.

THE CALCULATION SYSTEM

The calculation system for the coefficient system will take a period of the current year plus the last two years. In this case, any event held between January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2018 will be considered for this system. The events considered between this time span can be seen in the "Full Calendar" tab of the spreadsheet which details the award shows and polling competitions considered for the calculation along with their dates. For this inaugural cycle, I have recorded over 25 award shows, 15 polling competitions, and perhaps 4-6 online awards, with more to come as time goes.

Different calculation system will be adopted for TV, movies, and actors, especially seeing how there are different set of events for these systems. For movies, the system's calculation cycle goes for two periods, being the preceding year and the current year, with the calculations of the preceding year start from the award show after the Oscars, which in this case is the 2017 MTV TV & Movie Awards. Starting from this cycle, the movie field will be registered with entrants from this award show and onward, until the final awards show taking place in 2018. The reason why I consider to use this cycle is because that the Awards Season awards movies released in the preceding year, and that beyond the Oscars any movie released even past the Academy's criteria can take part although some movies from preceding year might be in the nomination mix as well (for example nominees from La La Land and Hidden Figures in the 2017 MTV TV & Movie Awards). Any nomination and win that the movie in question has, including movie acting-related categories, counts towards the movie in question.

The television system has a bigger calculation cycle in that the period lasts for a full cycle, with the Emmys taking Oscars' place as a media-specific award. The stark contrast is that the polling competitions are added though I programmed it to not reward as much as CCAs (more like lower-mid tier event) and finished shows, either by the virtue of series finale or cancellation, will be retired two years since its last episode, which from there on the show will no longer score any point. Furthermore, shows of variety, reality, sketch, and documentary genre will not be eligible for scoring either. The retirement rule will not apply if the show is in the long hiatus, provided that the show is renewed for another season (a case for Game of Thrones), and a show can re-enter the system if a spin-off or a revival is made (a case for Gilmore Girls with its Netflix-aired spinoff A Year in Life, extending its eligibility to November 25, 2018, two years from its release). Like in the movies system, a nomination and win in TV-related categories counts towards a particular series represented. However, in polling competitions, the higher a series' final placement in the bracket is, the more coefficient points it can get, and in case multiple characters/ships represent the same series, only the best effort count towards the series in question.

Finally, the actor system is a more complete system although it doesn't include polling competitions (though I might consider adding online awards if I may). Both Emmys and Oscars are considered in the system, the cycle lasts for as long as the television system's cycle, and no retirement rule will take place since the actors can score roles in either television or movies within the designated cycle. Unlike both movie and television systems however, the wins in Lead, Supporting, and Guest/miscellaneous categories are tiered, with lead categories being the highest tier, depending on the awards show. Any nomination and win acquired by the actor counts towards the actor themselves, and although the actors are nominated through ineligible shows in the criteria at one point, as long as their nomination is within the eligible categories list (case study: Saturday Night Live nominations in Best Comedy Actor/Actress categories in the Emmys), the points are still theirs. Simple, but more in-depth.

To complete the awards show architecture, inside the system's spreadsheet is the "Award Parameters" that details which categories score towards which type of wins in a particular award show. Generally, this consists of series/movie genre category wins (e.g. Best Motion Picture, Best Drama Movie/Series, Best Comedy Movie/Series), lead/support acting category wins (e.g. Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actor), and miscellaneous category wins (e.g. Best Writing, Best Directing, Best Guest Actor/Actress). The "Points" tab also gives you an idea

TAKING IT FOR THE SPIN

To showcase the coefficient system, the test spreadsheet is provided with events considered being those held between December 11, 2016 and September 16, 2017. Over eight different award shows are considered for the actor's ranking, with seven used for both television and movie rankings, plus four polling competitions for the television, taking television's events total to 11. A predetermined Award Parameters and coefficient points for different events can be seen in both "Award Parameters" and "Points" tabs respectively. You can also view this spreadsheet in full screen here, as well as downloading the Excel file here.


In the movies ranking, La La Land gets the highest coefficient of 48,750 points. While the movie failed to win the Best Motion Picture in the Oscars last year against Moonlight, the movie directed by Damien Chazelle scored over 37 nominations and 22 wins from all their nominations, and in fact has the most nominations in CCAs, Golden Globes, and the Oscars. In addition, its clean sweep in Golden Globes really helped the movie to attain the highest coefficient points, being 10,700 in the award alone. In the Oscars however, its jaw-dropping 14 nominations bumped its earning to 25,000 points, while for its wins (2 acting-related wins and 4 technical wins) it earned 7,500 points alone from the said total. The Best Motion Picture winner Moonlight sat in the second place with 26,300 points, with most of the points contributed through the Oscars where it earned 15,000 points off the award. I guess I might readjust points for nominations and wins in these awards perhaps, no?

Through consistent award showing, Moana is the highest seed out of all animated movies, placing 12th with 7,150 points, even beating out Zootopia who won one award higher against Moana's 2, though the former received more nominations in prestigious awards despite winning none of them, and even its successful run in last year's Teen Choice boosted the movie a little to receive more points, and speaking of Teen Choice, the movie's big winner Disney's Beauty and the Beast, starring Dan Stevens and Emma Watson, ended the test cycle in 16th place earning a total of 6,050, with 3,75 of which were from its Teen Choice wins, and the rest being the wins in the MTV TV & Movie Awards. With last year's MTV Awards and Teen Choice being the considered awards for the movies for the first official cycle, paired with its Critics' Choice nominations for this year, Disney's Fantasy movie is off to a good start.

In the television ranking, The People v. O.J. Simpson, part of Ryan Murphy's American Crime Story series, received over 14 nominations in CCAs, Golden Globes, and SAG, winning half of the whole nomination number after a successful Emmys run. The test period granted the FX drama series 13,900 points, and it can get even higher when their Emmy wins in 2016 get counted for the official cycle. The top series in the period however is in fact HBO's Westworld with 30,150 points, 32 nominations and seven wins, with Netflix's Stranger Things following behind with 28,133 points, 34 award nominations and 8 wins, and consistent showing in polling competitions. While at glance the Netflix Sci-Fi series could've been ranked higher, Westworld's wins in the acting categories of the CCAs weighed more, and boy did Evan Rachel Wood and Thandie Newton contribute the show's boost in the rankings. Both top series however only managed to win Creative Arts categories of last year's Emmy Awards, and in fact two big winners of the Emmys managed to break in the Top 10 in a quick way for this period, namely Big Little Lies and The Handmaid's Tale, who both scored 22,650 and 19,800 points respectively. This feat however is just below The Crown who sits in the fourth place, appeared from Critics' Choice until Emmys, and earned 23,700 after all its 22 nominations and 8 wins, of which the aforementioned two shows have the same number. Last but not least, NBC's This Is Us is the only network show who break through the Top 10 of the system, finishing in 8th place with 17,883 thanks to its award nominations paired with a small boost from polling competitions despite not getting the best result out of them. For these series, however, their race is far from over, with Golden Globes fast approaching and these series (apart from O.J. Simpson) are the nominees.

Yet, even with lots of award wins in a particular award might not guarantee a good finish, a case reflected for Riverdale and Teen Wolf, with both donning eight Teen Choice nominations last year. The CW series managed to win seven out of eight nominations in the award show, yet only scored 4,267 points alongside its polling competition appearances, while conversely Teen Wolf hit good marks in polling competitions but not so much in Teen Choice, ended up earning 3,850 points in total. Outlander's success in polling competitions didn't help much either paired with a drought of prestige nominations, ending the year with 3,683 points though this will definitely change with Caitriona Balfe nominated in the Golden Globes, while for Supergirl it didn't help much either with only Teen Choice nominations (and one win through Melissa Benoist) and 2,667 points at disposal. The toughest reality would be those series topping polling competitions but without any award win whatsoever, even at least in Teen Choice. This happens to series like The 100 (71st, 1,750 points), Person of Interest (134th, 0,733 points), and Skam (150th, 0,400 points). For a Norwegian series like Skam, this situation is understandable since none of the awards allow foreign series to have its stage, but I'd love to see what would become of the first two shows mentioned when the first cycle rolls out because The 100 ruled polling competitions in 2016 and Person of Interest had a treble over SpoilerTV paired with a win in People's Choice Awards, although the show won't be classified for points any longer.

Finally, in the actor's ranking, Viola Davis (Fences, How to Get Away with Murder) received 9,450 points throughout the test period, with seven nominations and four wins, despite failing to win her Emmy nomination. Oscar winners Emma Stone (La La Land) and Mahershala Ali (Moonlight) all tailed the actress with 7,550 and 7,400 points respectively, while highest seed in the early stages was in fact Sarah Paulson, scoring a perfect win in all her nominations in CCAs, Golden Globes, and SAG, with 4,300 points, but unfortunately a 16th place finish, although this could change when the official cycle gets counted. Finally, Teen Choice big winners Emma Watson and Gal Gadot only scored 2,950 and 1,800 points respectively. However, as I said earlier, the actor's ranking is a complete system with the retirement rule being nonexistent, so whenever the 2016 are counted, the rankings will greatly differ from what the current period presents.

The rankings will be updated after the 24th SAG AFTRA Awards, which would include the results from all past award shows and polling competitions as early as 2016 that will weigh the entire system. However, let's go dive into the Golden Globes which will be held on January 7, and will start at 8pm ET! In the meantime, you can check out my piece on Golden Globes here which includes my predictions of who will win all the categories!

~[R]