Emmy Awards
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categories. The two events that receive the most media coverage are the Primetime Emmy Awards and the Daytime Emmy Awards, which recognize outstanding work in American primetime and daytime entertainment programming, respectively. Other notable American national Emmy events include the Children's & Family Emmy Awards for children's and family-oriented television programming, the Sports Emmy Awards for sports programming, News and Documentary Emmy Awards for news and documentary shows, and the Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards and the Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards for technological and engineering achievements. Regional Emmy Awards are also presented throughout the country at various times through the year, recognizing excellence in local television. In addition, the International Emmy Awards honor excellence in TV programming produced and initially aired outside the United States.
The Emmy statuette, depicting a winged woman holding an atom, is named after "immy", an informal term for the image orthicon tube that was common in early television cameras. It is considered one of the four major annual American entertainment awards, along with the Grammy for music, the Oscar for film, and the Tony for Broadway theater.
The Emmys are presented by three related, but separate, organizations: the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Each of these three organizations is responsible for administering a particular set of Emmy Award ceremonies. The ATAS first awarded Emmys in 1949 to honor shows produced in the Los Angeles area before it became a national event in the 1950s to honor programs aired nationwide. Over the next two decades, the ATAS, the NATAS, and the IATAS expanded the award to honor other sectors of the TV industry.
History
The Los Angeles–based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences established the Emmy Award as part of an image-building and public relations opportunity. The first Emmy ceremony took place on January 25, 1949, at the Hollywood Athletic Club, but solely to honor shows produced and aired locally in the Los Angeles area. Shirley Dinsdale has the distinction of receiving the first Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality, during that first awards ceremony. The term "Emmy" derives from "Immy", the television industry slang for a TV camera image orthicon tube.In the 1950s, the ATAS expanded the Emmys into a national event to honor shows aired nationwide on broadcast television. In 1955, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences was formed in New York City as a sister organization to serve members on the East Coast. While the ATAS maintained a separate ceremony to honor shows aired locally in the Los Angeles area, the NATAS established regional chapters throughout the rest of the United States, with each one developing their own local Emmy ceremony for local programming.
Originally, there was only one Emmy event held per year to honor shows nationally broadcast in the United States. In 1974, the first Daytime Emmy ceremony was held to specifically honor achievement in national daytime programming. Other area-specific Emmy events soon followed. Also, the International Emmy Awards, honoring television programs produced and initially aired outside the U.S., was established in the early 1970s. Meanwhile, all Emmys awarded prior to the emergence of these separate, area-specific events are listed along with the Primetime Emmy Awards in the ATAS's official records.
In 1977, due to various conflicts, the ATAS and the NATAS broke ties. They agreed to share ownership of the Emmy statue and trademark, with each responsible for administering a specific set of award events. There was an exception regarding the Engineering Awards : The NATAS continues to administer the Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards, while the ATAS holds the separate Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards.
With the rise of cable television in the 1980s, cable programs first became eligible for the Primetime Emmys in 1988, and the Daytime Emmys in 1989. In 2011 ABC cancelled the soap operas All My Children and One Life to Live, and sold the two shows' licensing rights to the production company Prospect Park so they could be continued on streaming television; this prompted NATAS to create a new Daytime Emmys category for the 2013 ceremony to honor such web-only series. The ATAS also began accepting original online-only streaming television programs in 2013.
In December 2021, the ATAS and the NATAS announced a major realignment of the national Emmy Award ceremonies in response to the growth of streaming television programs, blurring the lines in determining which shows fall under Daytime or Primetime. Each of the ceremonies' scopes would now revolve around factors such as the themes and frequency of such programming, rather than dayparts. Among the major changes, daytime dramas would remain in the Daytime Emmys but most other scripted dramas and comedies would move to the Primetime Emmys, all children's programming would move to the newly created Children's & Family Emmys that the NATAS previously announced in November 2021, morning shows would move from the Daytime Emmys to the News & Documentary Emmys, and talk shows would now be divided between the Daytime and Primetime Emmys based on "format and style characteristics reflective of current programming in the daytime or late night space". The realignment of game shows and instructional programming categories was determined later in 2023.
Statuette
The Emmy statuette, depicting a winged woman holding an atom, was designed by television engineer Louis McManus, who used his wife as the model. The ATAS rejected forty-seven proposals before settling on McManus's design in 1948. The statuette "has since become the symbol of the TV Academy's goal of supporting and uplifting the art and science of television: The wings represent the muse of art; the atom the electron of science."When deciding a name for the award, ATAS founder Syd Cassyd originally suggested "Ike", the nickname for the television iconoscope tube. "Ike" was also the popular nickname of World War II hero and future U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the ATAS members wanted something unique. Finally, television engineer and the third academy president Harry Lubcke suggested the name "Immy", a term commonly used for the image orthicon tube used in the early cameras. After "Immy" was chosen, it was later feminized to Emmy to match their female statuette.
The weight and dimensions of the Emmy statuette vary among the events. Each Primetime Emmy statuette weighs, and is made of copper, nickel, silver, and gold. The statue stands tall with a base diameter of and weight of. The Regional Emmy Award statuette is tall with a base diameter of and weight of. Each takes five and a half hours to make and is handled with white gloves to prevent fingerprints. The Primetime Emmy statues are manufactured by R.S. Owens & Company based in Chicago, Illinois, which was also charged with manufacturing the Academy Award statues until 2016, when AMPAS switched to Polich Tallix in Walden, New York. The Regional Emmy Awards are made by both R.S. Owens & Company and Society Awards, a New York–based company that also makes the Golden Globe Awards.
As its trademark owners, the ATAS and the NATAS hold firm rules on the use of the "Emmy" image as well as its name. For example, the Emmy statuette must always appear facing left. Any copyright notice for the statue should read "ATAS/NATAS", listing both academies. Academy members must also obtain permission to use the statue image or name for promotional uses even though they are winners of the award. Furthermore, DVDs of Emmy-winning shows may reference the fact that they received an Emmy, but cannot use the statue image unless it is capable of being removed from all copies one year after the award is presented.
Types
Various Emmy events competitions are held annually throughout the calendar year, ranging from honoring nationally televised shows to regionally and locally produced programs. Each event has its own set of award categories, nominating and voting procedures, and rules regarding voting committees, among others. It is not uncommon for one event to have some of the same category names that another event uses..A show that enters one of the Emmy events generally cannot also be entered into any of the others. For example, syndicated shows whose air times vary between media markets may be eligible for both the Daytime and Primetime Emmys, but cannot enter in both. In general, a show is considered national if it reaches more than 50 percent of U.S. households; programs that do not reach at least 50 percent of the country may enter into the Regional Emmys instead. Streaming television shows are treated similarly to syndicated shows: they must be available for downloading or streaming by more than 50 percent of the US national market to be eligible in one of the national Emmy competitions, and they can only enter into one of those national Emmy ceremonies. And a primetime show that is a co-production between U.S. and overseas companies might be eligible for both the Primetime and International Emmys, but also cannot enter in both.
Regardless of which area-specific competitions in which one wins an Emmy, all winners are called an "Emmy Winner". Nevertheless, some distinguish the Primetime Emmys as superior to the other Emmy competitions.
Primetime
The Primetime Emmys are presented in recognition of excellence in American primetime television programming. Ceremonies generally are held in mid-September, on the Sunday before the official start of the fall television season, and are currently broadcast in rotation among the ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox networks, each network taking turns to air the ceremony every four years.Some award categories presented to behind-the-scenes personnel such as art directors, costume designers, cinematographers, casting directors, and sound designers are awarded at a separate Creative Arts Emmys ceremony held a few days earlier.
The Primetime Emmys are run and voted on by members of the ATAS. For most categories, members from each of the ATAS's branches vote around June to determine the nominees only in their respective categories. All members can vote for nominations in the best program categories. The final voting to determine the winners is held in August.