Television is a rapidly evolving medium, so Emmy categories come and go with its trends. In this year’s Emmys, which air on Sunday, we have “Outstanding Structured Reality Program”; in the ’50s we had “Best Continuing Performance (Female) in a Series by a Comedienne, Singer, Hostess, Dancer, M.C., Announcer, Narrator, Panelist or Any Person Who Essentially Plays Herself.” And while we’ve now hit the point where the difference between a “comedy” and a “drama” is how long you’re expected to sit down and watch an episode of television, it’s still possible to find where different shows had their strengths historically.

To get ready for this year’s show I decided to take a trip through Emmy history. I pulled every Emmy nomination listed by IMDb, and broke them into one of four categories: Emmys for a performance, for writing or direction, for tech (anything from hair and costumes to visual special effects) and for overall show. Since all the nominees are nominated by their peers in each category, this can give us a broad look at which shows moved the bar forward in their time.

I looked at the percentage of a program’s Emmy nominations that fell into each category. This allowed me to find, for instance, which shows won their acclaim from the work behind the scenes: the music, the makeup, the production design and the editing.

Tech advances are where “Star Trek” really sings. “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Deep Space Nine,” “Voyager” and “Enterprise” racked up a combined 141 nominations in their time, all but one of which was in the tech category. If you want a makeup and costume nomination, casting a Klingon tends to make your point pretty quickly. Other programs that pulled massive hauls from the tech set include period pieces such as “Rome,” “The Tudors,” “Band of Brothers” and “The Borgias,” and science fiction material like “Battlestar Galactica” and “The Walking Dead.”

SHOW TOTAL NOMINATIONS SHARE OF NOMINATIONS FOR TECHNICAL WORK MADtv 43 100% Star Trek: Voyager 34 100 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 32 100 Star Trek: Enterprise 17 100 That ’70s Show 16 100 Carnivàle 15 100 Rome 15 100 The Tudors 15 100 Christmas in Washington 14 100 Solid Gold 14 100 The Walking Dead 14 100 Alice in Wonderland 12 100 JAG 11 100 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea 11 100 Star Trek: The Next Generation 58 98 Shows whose Emmy nominations are mostly for technical work Source: IMDb

When it comes to writing and directing, it’s late night and comedy that really come out ahead. The late shows of David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert all pulled sizable chunks of their nominations in these categories. So too did sketch shows like “Inside Amy Schumer,” “Portlandia” and “SCTV Network.”

SHOW TOTAL NOMINATIONS SHARE OF NOMINATIONS FOR WRITING & DIRECTING SCTV Network 15 67% Late Night with David Letterman 36 58 Buffalo Bill 11 55 Episodes 10 50 The Jack Benny Program 20 50 The Colbert Report 41 49 Late Night with Conan O’Brien 29 48 The Bold Ones: The Senator 11 45 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 60 45 Portlandia 16 44 CBS Playhouse 28 43 Silicon Valley 19 42 This American Life 12 42 Inside Amy Schumer 12 42 The Defenders 22 41 Shows whose Emmy nominations are largely for writing and directing Source: IMDb

Programs that pulled most or all of their nominations from the overall show award categories are some combination of two kinds of television not really recognized elsewhere in the Emmys. Some have stripped down production, a lack of acting and minimal writing. “Nick News with Linda Ellerbee,” “Inside the Actors Studio” and “Antiques Roadshow” are stellar examples. Others are animated shows: “South Park,” “Adventure Time,” “Futurama” and “Robot Chicken” don’t easily get recognized in other categories that skew towards live action, but they get recognized here. Somewhere in the middle of the two lies “Sesame Street.”

SHOW TOTAL NOMINATIONS SHARE OF NOMINATIONS FOR OVERALL SHOW Nick News with Linda Ellerbee 22 100% Inside the Actors Studio 19 100 Antiques Roadshow 14 100 Sesame Street 11 100 Adventure Time 10 100 The Dick Cavett Show 10 100 Biography 20 90 South Park 17 88 The Barbara Walters Summer Special 16 88 ABC’s Wide World of Sports 15 80 Entertainment Tonight 18 78 Robot Chicken 14 71 Futurama 14 71 Live From Lincoln Center 69 71 Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color 24 71 Shows whose Emmy nominations are mostly for the show overall Source: IMDB

The shows that Emmy recognizes almost entirely for their performances are an interesting bunch. They’re character-driven shows — often police procedurals or sitcoms — that have a versatile cast and can often pull on lots of easy one-shot guest actor nominations. “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” is the ur-example here.

SHOW TOTAL NOMINATIONS SHARE OF NOMINATIONS FOR PERFORMANCE Law & Order: Special Victims Unit 23 96% The Jeffersons 14 93 Touched by an Angel 13 85 Rhoda 17 82 Judging Amy 11 82 Monk 18 72 The Rockford Files 18 72 The Good Wife 42 71 The Odd Couple 14 71 Mad About You 34 71 Family 17 71 I Love Lucy 20 70 Coach 16 69 Bewitched 22 68 Newhart 25 68 Shows whose Emmy nominations are mostly for performances Source: IMDb

So these are all shows that skew in one direction or another. What does a perfectly balanced Emmy nominated show look like? Across the whole set of nominated programs, on average 25 percent of the nominations were for performances, 14 percent for writing and directing, 43 percent for one of the tech categories and 18 percent for the show overall. I tried to find the show that looked closest to that.

SHOW TOTAL NOM. PERFORMANCE WRITING & DIRECTING TECH. OVERALL SHOW DISTANCE FROM AVG. Data set average — 25 14% 43% 18% 0.00 Designing Women 18 22 17 44 17 0.04 Northern Exposure 39 28 18 38 15 0.07 Mad Men 116 25 16 47 11 0.08 Lincoln 13 31 15 38 15 0.08 Six Feet Under 53 30 9 47 13 0.10 Anne Frank: The Whole Story 11 27 18 45 9 0.10 Brian’s Song 11 27 18 45 9 0.10 Queen of the Stardust Ballroom 11 27 18 45 9 0.10 Too Big to Fail 11 27 18 45 9 0.10 Saturday Night Live 203 30 19 41 10 0.10 The shows whose Emmy nominations have been most in balance Source: IMDb

The closest shows are “Designing Women” and “Northern Exposure” — two CBS shows of the early ’90s — and right smack after those two comes one of the most recognizable programs of the past decade: “Mad Men.” This makes a lot of sense; the show was well made, with many episodes highlighted for writing and direction, some beloved performances and — set in the ’60s — a meticulously crafted production design. It’s one of the best shows ever and one of the most evenly acclaimed.

And when you combine all that well-rounded balance with its 116 Emmy nominations, the fourth-most ever and far more than “Designing Women and “Northern Exposure,” “Mad Men” seems to be the most iconic show in Emmys history.