'House of Cards' joins list of Emmy nominees

House of Cards, the political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and streamed on Netflix, joined last year's incumbents Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, Homeland and Mad Men as Emmy nominees for best drama series.
Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, Girls, Louie, Veep and the departed 30 Rock were named best-comedy contenders.
This marks the first time that shows not aired on traditional broadcast or cable networks were nominated in the top Emmy categories, something of a watershed moment for the awards, which in a 2008 rule change made shows distributed over the Internet eligible for TV's top honors. Arrested Development's Jason Bateman, also on Netflix, and Cards' Spacey and Robin Wright won nominations as lead actors.

"We are thrilled beyond belief," says Netflix's Ted Sarandos, who was behind its original-series push and considers the Emmy nods "a leveling moment. Change comes very slow, but Emmy voters recognized that great television is great television, and they didn't pay attention to how it got there."

Netflix, which has veered from a DVD-by-mail service to a streaming giant with 29 million U.S. subscribers, has moved heavily into original series this year, with budgets matching those for traditional networks, and far exceeding those for most other web content.

Spacey, who plays conniving congressman Francis Underwood, joined Jeff Daniels, the embattled anchor in HBO's The Newsroom, along with repeat nominees Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and Damian Lewis (Homeland). Wright will face off against Homeland's Claire Danes, Nashville's Connie Britton, Downton's Michelle Dockery, Bates Motel's Vera Farmiga, Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss and Scandal's Kerry Washington, usatoday.com reported.

In the comedy field, Bateman (whose Emmy-winning show was canceled by Fox in 2006 but resurrected online in May), joined familar faces Alec Baldwin (30 Rock), Louis C.K. (Louie), Don Cheadle (House of Lies), Matt LeBlanc (Episodes) and Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory). Among actresses, Laura Dern, the star of HBO's canceled series Enlightened, joined Girls' Lena Dunham, Nurse Jackie's Edie Falco, 30 Rock's Tina Fey, Veep's Julia Louis-Dreyfus — last year's winner — and Parks and Recreation's Amy Poehler. Last year's nominees Zooey Deschanel (New Girl) and Melissa McCarthy (Mike & Molly) didn't make the cut. Neither did last year's winners Jon Cryer (lead actor for Two and a Half Men) and supporting actor Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family).

FX miniseries American Horror Story: Asylum, entered in the movies and miniseries category, won the most nominations, with 17 in all, followed closely by Game of Thrones, with 16. Other movie and miniseries nominees were HBO's Behind the Candelabra and Phil Spector, History's The Bible, Sundance Channel's Top of the Lake (for which Moss was also nominated) and USA's Political Animals. But BBC America's buzzy Orphan Black and its star, Tatiana Maslany, were left out.

As usual, there were plenty of repeat nominees in a medium that depends on long-running hits. But Daniels, Farmiga and Washington were first-timers. And AMC's Mad Men, which has dominated the writing honors in recent years, won no nominations in that category for a season that some critics saw as underwhelming.

HBO again led the nominees tally with 108, the pay channel's most since 2004, followed by CBS and NBC, tied with 53 apiece.

Homeland and Modern Family were the top drama and comedy winners, respectively, in 2012.

The 65th annual Primetime Emmy Awards will air Sept. 22 on CBS, with Neil Patrick Harris hosting.