YouTube creators can now be nominated for Emmy Awards

What do Fargo, Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul and Scare PewDiePie have in common? They could all be nominated for an Emmy Award this year.

The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced today that it is expanding categories and creating new ones to allow more opportunities for online creators to have their short series awarded by peers, according to The Hollywood Reporter. As part of the ongoing change to keep the annual award show up to date with modern times, the academy is introducing short-form categories that will examine and include content from YouTube Red, Crackle, Adult Swim and more.

Within this new category, awards will be handed out for best acting performance in a short-form original series, best short-form original series comedy or drama, and best short-form original series reality or non-fiction. To be eligible to compete, the original series must have aired a minimum of six episodes, with each episode being 15 minutes or less in length.

Much like the technical and craft categories, the awards for this new section won't be handed out during the televised Emmys event. Instead, a separate ceremony will be held to honor the nominees and winners, with highlights being announced during the televised main event.

It was only just recently that the Emmys started accepting submissions for original programming from streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu. In the past few years, however, streaming services have proven to be worthwhile contenders, sweeping up at last year's award ceremony.

The Emmy Awards will take place later this year. Late night host Jimmy Kimmel is expected to host.