The Television Academy is in advanced talks to move the Primetime Emmy Awards telecast to Amazon Prime Video, Variety reported on Sept. 16. A deal would take the ceremony off broadcast television for the first time since the Emmys began in 1949.
The talks follow the end of the Academy's eight-year "wheel" agreement with ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. That deal, struck in 2018, rotated the show among the four networks each year. It expired with NBC's telecast of the 78th Emmys on Sept. 14, which also streamed on Peacock. The four-network rotation had been in place since 1995, a 31-year run.
The money
Under the wheel deal, the networks were believed to pay the Academy just above $8 million a year in license fees, according to Variety, roughly the same fee as the previous agreement. No terms for a Prime Video deal have been reported, and it is not clear whether any deal points are set. Variety reported the talks have come down to the license fee.
A single-outlet deal covering several years appealed to the Academy, according to Variety. The reasoning: a platform that knows it will air the show again the following year has more reason to spend on producing and promoting it. The Academy also weighed keeping a rotation with some new outlets, with at least one broadcast network, believed to be Fox, dropping out.
TV Academy chair Cris Abrego said "conversations are continuing" on a new TV deal and that the Academy would share news when it has it.
The conflict question
Prime Video is also a competitor at the Emmys. Its shows earned 48 nominations this year and won 10 awards, with nominated series including "Fallout" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power," Yahoo Entertainment reported. Yahoo Entertainment flagged the arrangement as a potential conflict, since Prime Video would present awards its own shows compete for.
The streamer already has live-event experience at scale. Prime Video set an NFL streaming record with a Wild Card game in January, and it already carries the ACM Awards, which left CBS in 2021.
Where the other award shows went
The Emmys would follow other award shows off broadcast. The SAG-AFTRA Awards left TNT and TBS for Netflix, and the Oscars will move from Disney's ABC to YouTube starting in 2029, CBR reported. YouTube passed Netflix in daily viewing time for the first time in 2025.
The Television Academy made other changes to the telecast this year. It cut the number of categories presented on air from 26 to 19, moving writing and directing awards for limited series, among others, to the Creative Arts ceremonies, a change that drew criticism from industry guilds. Last year's CBS telecast drew 7.59 million viewers, its best audience since 2021, according to Yahoo Entertainment.
Source: Variety
Comments