Emmys in Advanced Talks to Move to Amazon Prime Video — SkimNews
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- The Television Academy is in advanced talks with Amazon Prime Video to move the Emmys off broadcast television for the first time since 1949, with Chair Cris Abrego confirming only that "conversations are continuing."
- The 2025 Emmys drew 7.59 million viewers on CBS — the best since 2021 — but HBO Max, Apple TV, and Netflix dominated the wins, leaving CBS with a single trophy for the now-canceled "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert."
- Amazon Prime Video landed 48 Emmy nominations this year and took home 10, including five for "Spider-Noir," raising conflict-of-interest concerns about a platform that campaigns for the trophies also airing the telecast.
- The SAG Awards' move to Netflix in 2024 drew just 1.8 million views — roughly what it pulled in its final cable year — missing Netflix's U.S. weekly Top 10 but cracking Canada's, with 2025 viewership showing no meaningful spike.
- Fox's 1987 exclusive takeover of the Emmys cratered ratings from nearly 36 million in 1986 to just over 12 million by 1990, with the 1988 ceremony going without a host, illustrating the risks of concentrating broadcast rights with one distributor.
- The article proposes expanding the Emmys into a full weekend covering all 116 categories Friday through Sunday — giving Creative Arts ceremonies their own red carpets and live broadcasts — and convening a cross-industry task force to overhaul category definitions, nominee counts, peer-group voting, and eligibility rules.
- Under the most recent eight-year deal struck in 2018, broadcast networks paid just over $8 million a year for Emmys rights, with CBS cutting an eight-figure check for the 2025 ceremony whose winners mostly belonged to streaming rivals.
Why it matters: A Prime Video move creates a conflict-of-interest minefield — Amazon won 10 Emmys this year while the show aired on CBS — while the SAG Awards' Netflix migration proves distribution alone doesn't grow audiences (1.8M views, no meaningful spike in year two). The article's central argument: the Emmys' real problems are structural — category design, voting, telecast format — and won't be solved by simply swapping broadcast for streaming.
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