Newcomers, Salemites dominate nominations for 15th Annual Soaphunks.net Awards

Daytime freshmen Nathan Owens of DAYS and Rob Wilson of AMC each racked up a record-tying eight nominations to lead all studs in the 15th Annual Soaphunks.net Award nominations, announced Sunday at soaphunks.net. Eighty nominations were announced covering 16 categories.

As no soap hunk has ever earned more than eight nominations in a single year, Owens & Wilson join AMC's Cameron Mathison, who had eight nods in 1999, as well as Mark Collier (2004) and Mark Lawson (2008) for the record.

Both diaper dandies found themselves with mentions in the top category — Best Hunk — along with DAYS' Shawn Christian, Y&R's Marco Dapper and B&B's Lawrence St. Victor. This is Christian's fourth shot at the top prize that has eluded him thus far. Dapper's nomination here is his second, and St. Victor's nod is his first. None of the five nominees has ever won the Best Hunk title — the third consecutive year that's been the case.

Christian and St. Victor each received four nominations, as did DAYS' Eric Martsolf and Greg Vaughan. Dapper got three total nods.

A total of 37 soap hunks received nominations this year, up four from 2012. With 31 nominations, DAYS led all shows for the second consecutive year. NBC led the networks with 32 nominations. CBS scored 24 nods, with newcomer The Online Network (TOLN) grabbing 17 thanks to the re-emergence of AMC & OLTL. ABC brought up the rear with seven.

Other points of interest:

• Until this year, only one African-American had ever placed in the Best Hunk race (Y&R's Shemar Moore in 1999). With Owens and St. Victor up this year, African-Americans grabbed two of the top category's spots. In fact, the inclusions throughout the ballot of hunks like GH's Sean Blakemore, OLTL's Corbin Bleu and Y&R's Redaric Williams & Lamon Archey helped make this the best year ever for black soap hunks.
• Two more nominations for GH's Tyler Christopher put him in sole possession of an unfortunate record: the most nominations (15) without any wins. Will this be his year to finally win?
• The Hunkiest Newcomer race was clearly its most competitive in years, as nominations leaders Owens & Wilson were joined by Williams, OLTL's Robert Gorrie and DAYS' Casey Moss. Left out were the otherwise eligible Bleu, as well as DAYS' Sean Douglas, AMC's Ryan Bittle, GH's Bryan Craig, and Y&R's Lamon Archey & Hartley Sawyer.
• For the first time since 2005, the winningest soap hunk of all time, Brandon Beemer, is not nominated in any caegory.
• Two of the Best Hunk nominees (Dapper and Owens) have already departed their respective soaps, while Wilson's entire show seems to be on permanent hiatus.

The entire list of nominations is available online. A complete year-by-year history of the awards is also available online.

As always, voting begins December 1 at soaphunks.net.