AWARDS FATIGUE? EMMYS BATTLING BURNOUT, KATRINA IN FIGHT FOR RATINGS.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

With three stars of ``Desperate Housewives'' competing for a best actress statuette, the cliffhanger possibilities for Sunday's Emmy Awards telecast are juicier than they have been in years.

Imagine the possibilities.

Will Marcia Cross, who famously didn't want Teri Hatcher and her red bathing suit front-and-center on the Vanity Fair cover, smile through clenched teeth if her brunette co-star walks off with Emmy gold? Will Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe winner Hatcher dissolve into tears if her winning streak is halted by Cross or Felicity Huffman?

But the biggest cliffhanger of all: Will anybody even be watching these comedy-drama queens duke it out on the CBS telecast of the industry's kudofest.

This year, the show airs just weeks after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast with recovery still in the early stages. Then there is the lingering question of whether or not viewers are suffering from a growing case of award-show fatigue.

Last fall, the Emmy telecast suffered through the second-lowest ratings in history. Then the Golden Globe Awards, the People's Choice Awards, and the Grammy Awards were all clobbered in the ratings by original episodes of ``Housewives,'' which aired opposite each of the ceremonies.

Were the shows simply the victim of all the addictive happenings on fictional Wisteria Lane or is watching a bunch of performers being handed trophies and thanking their co-stars, agents and families not as fascinating as it used to be?

``There is certainly some award-show fatigue, I lost count a few years ago of all of them,'' said Robert Thompson, a professor of pop culture at Syracuse University. ``To some extent, the Oscars and Emmys are the mother of all awards shows and are immune to that. But then, who would have guessed that Miss America would be leaving Atlantic City and playing on a cable channel that didn't exist several decades ago.''

With ABC scheduling a repeat of the feature film ``Pearl Harbor'' opposite the Emmys, the show should have a wide ratings berth although it could lose some younger viewers to the WB's broadcast of ``The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.''

``I strongly suspect that this plunge in ratings is more of a slap from those 'Desperate Housewives' than genuine award-show fatigue,'' said Tom O'Neil, editor of ``The Emmy Book'' and the host of the Internet award show site GoldDerby.com. ``Award shows take place on Sunday nights and we hadn't had a Sunday night water cooler show. It's a freak factor.''

Bringing back popular previous host Ellen DeGeneres has added to the overall optimism of CBS executives and officials from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

DeGeneres was the host four years ago when the Emmys were twice delayed because of the Sept. 11, 2001, bombings and their aftermath. When the show finally went on, DeGeneres was widely praised for her hosting job.

``How television and the culture are absorbing Katrina is certainly different than how they absorbed Sept. 11,'' Thompson said. ``Four years ago, all culture was put on pause. But people have continued to watch comedies and dramas and reality shows throughout, even when things were at their grimmest.''

But the best thing Emmy has going for it this year has been the nominations themselves. New blood from ``Housewives'' and fellow ABC ratings smash ``Lost'' have livened up a field that had grown somewhat predictable with such pay cable shows as HBO's ``The Sopranos,'' ``Sex in the City,'' and ``Curb Your Enthusiasm'' that large segments of the audience had not seen.

``This has been an amazing year for broadcast television; all the water cooler talk has been about broadcast shows,'' said Jack Sussman, CBS' vice president for specials. ``I believe this is probably the largest number of first-time nominees in all the major acting categories and that's good for television, good for broadcast television and good for the Emmys.''

The four biggest broadcast networks, after a bidding war with HBO, agreed in 2002 to pay $52 million to rotate the Emmys through 2010. There has been some concern among the academy's board of governors that CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox might try to renegotiate the lucrative multiyear deal should the show bomb out again in the ratings this year.

``You enter into a seven-figure deal and you have responsibilities,'' said Todd Leavitt, president and chief operating officer of ATAS. ``It's not about just taking the check to the bank once a year. It's our brand and we have a huge amount of pride in it. We gotta get it right. We are very optimistic and we are working harder than we ever have.''

The eight-year deal with the networks brings ATAS $5.5 million during the first four years, then $7.5 million the next four years.

``We take our partnership with the networks extremely seriously,'' Leavitt said. ``Viewership has changed and numbers have gone down across the board. It's about the Grammys having problems, the Tonys having problems, even the Oscars.''

In addition to hiring DeGeneres, Ken Ehrlich, the veteran producer of 25 Grammy telecasts, replaces Don Mischer who had been at the helm of all but one Emmy show over the last decade.

``We've got our shot and we'll step up and do the best we can,'' Sussman said. ``We've come up with some new ideas and are very optimistic. The bottom line is, you still have to give out awards and the hope is that we can shake up a tired format that has existed for decades with very little change.''

Greg Hernandez, [phone]

greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com

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WILL EMMY WIN VIEWERS?

SOURCE: Academy of Television Arts and Sciences