How the Paley Center Can Make a Winning Emmy Alternative in 5 Easy Steps

Rule #3: Dress it down.

Why spring for red carpet trappings when a more casual, even improvisational style is just as engrossing? Network TV boasts a lot of stars who work best in an unpolished atmosphere: How I Met Your Mother's cast; 30 Rock and The Office's cast; the entire Matt Groening thinktank. Putting these greats into an environment where they can remain unpretentious and unscathed by the barbs of Joan Rivers and Ryan Seacrest seems like the least embarrassing option for everyone.

Rule #4: Make the performers perform.

Instead of hearing Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin blather about Betty White's contributions to TV, let's see them update segments inspired by The Mary Tyler Moore Show, or update segments from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, or point out White's influence through a live 30 Rock sketch. This way, we see what we like about network TV stars (their showmanship) while being reminded of what network TV matters (its illustrious history). A Golden Girls update starring Amy Poehler, Kristen Wiig, Rachel Dratch, and Mindy Kaling? A Match Game reworking with Jane Kaczmarek as Brett Somers and Neil Patrick Harris as Charles Nelson Reilly? It could just be hokey -- but done with gusto, a lack of pretension, and some actual comic instincts -- it could be more watchable than another expect windfall for Mad Men.

Rule #5: Cap it at an hour and a half.

Most award shows bear the onus of an imprecise running time. But with an award show honoring a single recipient, producers can track ceremony length with greater ease and obliterate the one problem the Emmys will always have: endlessness. To quote White's late husband Allen Ludden: "The password is brevity." And the Paley Center has a real fine chance of cashing in.

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Networks plot Emmy rival":http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118012997.html?categoryid=14&cs=1&ref=bd_tv [Variety]

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