The Kelly Clarkson Show won five awards Friday at the 53rd annual Daytime Emmy Awards, finishing the night with the most wins even as General Hospital claimed the top drama prize. The daytime field split sharply at the end of a three-hour ceremony that streamed live from the Hollywood Palladium via YouTube.
For readers searching the Kelly Clarkson Show Emmy Awards results, the count is simple: five for The Kelly Clarkson Show, four for General Hospital. Clarkson's program won Outstanding Daytime Talk Series, then added directing, Art Direction/Set Decoration, Hairstyling and Makeup, and Sound Mixing to its total, a haul that let it outpace the soaps on the final tally even after The Kelly Clarkson Show wrapped for good in August.
General Hospital still left with one of the night's biggest statements. Frank Valentini led the ABC soap to its sixth consecutive Outstanding Daytime Drama Series award, and the show also won Outstanding Writing Team for a Daytime Drama Series, Outstanding Casting for a Daytime Program, and Jeff Kober's win for Outstanding Guest Performance in a Daytime Drama Series for playing Cyrus Renault. Those victories were enough to keep the series near the top, but not enough to keep pace with Clarkson's total.
The contrast was sharper because General Hospital beat Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless, and Beyond the Gates for the drama series trophy, while Beyond the Gates finished tied with General Hospital on four wins overall and The Young and the Restless took three. CBS led all networks with eight total wins, and the ceremony also honored Genie Francis with the Life Achievement Award for playing Laura Spencer on General Hospital for five decades, a reminder that the night still belonged to daytime veterans even as the balance of awards shifted.
Francis said 50 years did not feel like an awfully long time to her and added that if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. That sentiment fit a night that handed the trophy count to one show and the prestige prize to another, with the final ledger leaving The Kelly Clarkson Show on top overall and General Hospital still dominant where it mattered most to soap viewers.
