“It’s a reminder for everybody in the industry that we are nothing without the talents of writers and actors,” says Casey Bloys, whose platform topped with 127 nominations. “This field of nominations confirms that.”

A few hours after the TV Academy announced the Primetime Emmy nominations on Wednesday, again giving the extended HBO brand the most mentions of any platform, HBO and Max chair and CEO Casey Bloys hopped on the phone with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss the big tally (127 nominations) and the coup his flagship network pulled off in the drama race.

HBO has four of the eight series nominated for best drama: House of the Dragon, The Last of Us, Succession and The White Lotus. Such a feat has only been accomplished twice — and not since 1992. During his victory lap, Bloys declined to comment on the future of divisive summer entry The Idol (“Nothing today!”) but did get into the sticky situation of celebrating all these nominations during a summer with the writers are on strike and on what might be the last day that union actors are working for the foreseeable future.

Lot’s of good news for you today, but we should probably start with the four HBO series in the best drama race.

For Francesca Orsi and her drama team at HBO to tie CBS from 1973 and NBC from 1992, to be in league with those groups and those dramas of those respective generations, that is a big deal. And I could not be prouder of that entire group.

Not to undermine the accomplishments of those shows from the past century, but they were competing against a much smaller pool.

Yes (laughs). In CBS’ case, I think it was just three networks. In 1992, I guess you had more. But HBO wasn’t even doing original drama in 1992, so, yeah, much smaller pool. Good point.

How do you look at the horse race between platforms shifting as we’ve seen the Disney umbrella widen and obviously HBO and Max be lumped under the same thing?

Look, we consider HBO and Max a platform. We’ve always said that. It’s one leader. One business affairs. One everything. And everything on HBO airs on Max for streaming. But, if you look at just HBO, it does dominate on its own. You can look at it any which way you want

But, looking at just HBO on its own, it did easily outperform the rest.

Yes, let’s look at it that way today (laughs).

Whenever the telecast happens, the TV Academy is listing all of your shows as HBO Max — a platform that you’ve sunsetted. Any frustration there?

No, we just rebranded. It’s gonna obviously take some time for people to understand. The most important thing is the shows getting recognized. The semantics, the grammar, that we can deal with.

Any key learnings from the first month-plus of launching the new service?

All in all, it’s going very well. But I’d rather talk about that later when we’ve got a lot more to share.

Do you have concerns about cannibalization in some of these categories. Succession has three men in the best lead actor in a drama race?

Obviously it’s the definition of a high class problem. On the one hand, I’m thrilled that everybody’s work is being recognized and of course they have to then compete against each other. Voters will decide who wins. You kind of live and die by that.

What’s your take on John Oliver shifting to from Talk to Variety and competing against Saturday Night Live?

John does a fantastic show. I feel really good about his chances. It’s a new category, so, you really can’t predict it. But I’ve got a lot of confidence in John.

HBO usually has one really strong performer in the limited or anthology space, but not this year. Any plans to specifically program to that gap moving forward?

I guess that in a year where we have four drama series, we’re doing just fine without a limited series. (laughs).

Do you have anything to share on the future of The Idol?

Nothing today. Only Emmy talk for you.

Is it a little bittersweet celebrating this during the strike? Are there showrunners you’d normally congratulate who you’re not communicating with right now because of current circumstances?

Well, I will send emails. If people are comfortable responding, I don’t think that qualifies as contact that’s forbidden since we’re not talking about the future or any sort of work. To that point, though, the recognition of these Emmy nominations is a reminder for everybody in the industry that we are nothing without the talents of writers and actors. This field of nominations confirms that. So, it is my hope that we are able to figure something out that makes them feel… that makes everybody feel valued and want to come back to work. Because we don’t get these nominations from executives. That’s not how it works. (laughs)

Obviously you’re not involved in these decisions, but can you even imagine an Emmy Awards in which writers and potentially actors aren’t able to participate?

I’d suspect you’d want to wait until after this resolved. I don’t know that it would make sense to have any sort of telecast when you’ve got writers and actors on strike. They’re the ones to be celebrated. The strikes would need to be resolved before any sort of ceremony or telecast.

Anything you’re not seeing headlines about that you’re particularly proud of?

Obviously, Succession did well, but The Last of Us did as well — and as a first-season show. For me, that helps answer the inevitable journalist questions about what HBO is going to do now that Succession is done. Now I can point to The Last of Us and say, “We’ll do that.” And we’ll do more White Lotus.

Do you have any contingency plans for the shows you have in production if the actors go on strike tonight?

Most of our shows are either down or Equity, so it’s non-SAG. We’ll see what happens. Again, we’re nowhere without the talent.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

BY MIKEY O’CONNELL