HBO leads Emmy pack

HBO’s Game of Thrones is up against Mr Robot and Downton Abbey in the drama category

HBO is once again leading the field for the most nominations in the Primetime Emmy Awards, with Netflix the top streaming service.

US premium cablenet HBO has a total of 94 noms, the highest number for any network for the 16th consecutive year.

FX trailed HBO with 56 nominations, with series like The People v OJ Simpson, American Crime Story and Fargo included in its tally.

In the coveted best drama category, HBO’s fantasy adventure series Game of Thrones (23 nominations) is up against the final season of PBS’s Downton Abbey, USA network’s Golden Globe winner Mr Robot, AMC’s Better Call Saul, Netflix’s House of Cards, FX’s The Americans and Showtime’s Homeland.

It means that for the fifth consecutive year the major broadcast networks have received no nominations in the drama category.

HBO’s Veep, which last year ended the five-year winning streak of ABC comedy Modern Family in the best comedy category, has again been nominated for that gong.

It will again face competition from Modern Family, as well as Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Amazon’s Transparent, HBO’s Silicon Valley, ABC’s Black-ish and Netflix’s Master of None.

Netflix took a record 54 nominations – 20 more than it received last year – meaning it has overtaken each of the US networks for Emmy nominations for the first time (NBC 41, ABC 35, CBS 35, Fox 29).

The service’s popular documentary Making a Murderer was nominated for six awards, including best doc series.

Meanwhile, is global streaming rival Amazon (16 nominations) was led by its transgender comedy Transparent with 10 nominations. However, Hulu managed to gain only two nominations in a year when it announced plans to boost its original programming output.

The 2016 Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony will be held on September 18 in LA.