AceShowbiz -

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has announced new rules that will affect this year's Emmy Awards. Among the major changes is the new definition of drama and comedy. According to the new rules, series with episodes of 30 minutes or less will be defined as comedies, while series with episodes of more than 30 minutes will be defined as dramas.

This rule will likely force Showtime's "Shameless", which the network submitted as a comedy last year after previously competing in drama categories for three years, to switch back to the drama categories. Also directly affected by this rule is Netflix's hour-long series "Orange Is the New Black", which last year competed as a comedy.

However, producers are allowed to "formally petition a new Academy industry panel to consider their series' eligibility in the alternative category." The drama and comedy series categories will also expand the number of nominees from six to seven each.

The Academy also changes the the phrase "miniseries" to "limited series," which are defined as "programs of two or more episodes with a total running time of at least 150 program minutes that tell a complete, non-recurring story, and do not have an ongoing storyline and/or main characters in subsequent seasons."

Those who can submit for Guest Actor category are "performers appearing in less than 50|percent| of a program's episodes." Meanwhile, the Variety Series is now split into Outstanding Variety talk and Outstanding Variety Sketch.

To expand member participation in the voting process, all voters eligible to vote in a category's nominating round are now eligible to vote in that category's final round. In the past, only members of special screening panels who can vote for some categories in the final round of Emmy balloting.

The 2015 Primetime Emmy Awards will be held Sunday, September 20. The new rules can be seen on Emmys' official site.