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The nominations for the 40th Annual Daytime Entertainment Emmy Awards have been announced. Television's top-rated soap opera, The Young and the Restless, led the pack with 23 total nominations. All five soaps that were eligible for Emmy consideration received nominations.
Perhaps the biggest surprise came at the top of the ballot: All five soaps were nominated in the Outstanding Drama Series category. With just five soaps left on the air at the end of 2012, it was believed that just three soaps would make the final cut.
"This is the first year that all five soaps have been nominated. Because of their initial scores -- they were just so close -- this is the tightest race ever," Good Morning America weatherman Sam Champion announced via a prepared statement during the live announcement of the nominations.
It was also a year of other firsts. Eight of the actors receiving Emmy nominations this year were first-time nominees.
Original The Bold and the Beautiful cast member Katherine Kelly Lang (Brooke Logan) picked up her first-ever Daytime Emmy nomination in the Outstanding Supporting Actress field. Lang has been pre-nominated for an Emmy ten of the last eleven years.
From 1998 to 2012, Kristen Alderson has appeared as Starr Manning on ABC's One Life to Live, but the young actress had never received a Daytime Emmy nomination. Like Lang, Alderson has received a pre-nomination every year but one since the pre-nomination process began. So it's somewhat ironic that the actress picked up her Emmy nomination not for her work on One Life to Live, but for General Hospital. After One Life to Live's cancellation, Alderson's Starr was one of several characters transported to General Hospital.
One Life to Live, which was eligible for the nine episodes broadcast on ABC before its broadcast television finale in January 2012, picked up three nominations. The show was nominated for Outstanding Writing Team and the night's biggest honor, Outstanding Drama Series. None of the show's actors made the pre-nominations phase of voting.
Days of our Lives had another strong showing this year, picking up 17 nominations -- the most the show has ever earned in a single year. In recent years, the NBC soap has earned multiple acting nominations. In the years prior to the 2003 introduction of the pre-nomination process, DAYS was often shut out of the acting categories.
This year's Emmy ballot is without some of its biggest names. Most notably might be that of General Hospital's Anthony Geary (Luke Spencer), the winningest actor in Daytime Emmy history. Geary, however, did not enter his name for Emmy consideration.
The Daytime Emmy ceremony will again be held at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. This year's ceremony will be broadcast live on HLN on June 16 at 8pm ET/5pm PT. A reminder for West Coast viewers that this will be broadcast live, and not on tape delay.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW A LIST OF THIS YEAR'S NOMINEES
