'Rivals' & 'Slow Horses' Go Head to Head in TV BAFTA Nominations

The 2024-2025 TV season is quickly wrapping up, as the next few weeks will be the debuts of all sorts of shows looking for a little awards love, at least here in the States. The Emmy Awards, the U.S.' official national television honors, are one of the few remaining awards shows that still insist on holding the eligibility period to cover the old "TV season" from June to May. Not even the TV BAFTAs do that anymore, having moved to a calendar year schedule, even if the award ceremony itself is still held close to the end of the "TV Season" year in May, making it the unofficial closing ceremony of the 2024 awards season.

By going by calendar year, the nominations sometimes feel a little out of date. Shogun will have been off the air for an entire year before the TV BAFTAs are held, yet it will still be on the nominations slate, feeling like a holdover from another era. However, for American viewers, the delay actually works favorably; for example, Wolf Hall: The Mirror & the Light is currently airing on PBS as the 2025 nominations arrive, making these awards feel far more timely than they might otherwise do.

However, this may be the first year where Americans will have already gotten a chance to watch the majority of the titles nominated, thanks to BritBox, which brought viewers nominees such as Sherwood, Blue Lights, The Responder, and Until I Kill You. Perhaps that's why the streaming service has committed to airing the TV BAFTAs live for the next few years: its shows will be the ones feted.