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Spoiler alert: Moving to streaming isn’t enough to fix award show problems.
Mariska Hargitay closed the 78th Emmys on Monday night from the Peacock Theater, and the ceremony
she sent off may be the last of its kind. Since 1949, the Emmys have belonged to broadcast television. Future editions may not.
As Variety exclusively reported, the Television Academy is in advanced talks to move the show to Amazon Prime Video, taking the Emmys off broadcast television for the first time in history. TV Academy Chair Cris Abrego said only that “conversations are continuing.” This move would drop the Emmys into the same territory as the Oscars and SAG-AFTRA’s Actor Awards (the former heading to YouTube in 2029, the latter already on Netflix). Viewers will now require a subscription to tune in. Is that good or a bad thing?
Under the most recent eight-year deal, struck in 2018, the networks paid just over $8 million a year for the rights to host the Emmys. Last year, that left CBS cutting an eight-figure check to stage a night that belonged to its streaming rivals. The 2025 telecast drew 7.59 million viewers, the best Emmy number since 2021. HBO Max, Apple TV and Netflix dominated the evening, while CBS took home a single one for the now-canceled “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” A tradition built on equity among the TV networks can turn into an expensive ritual that benefits platform competitors — and highlights how an individual distributor’s content failed to resonate.
On paper, the Academy’s case for a single owner is a strong one. If you hand the Emmys to a platform that knows it will have them year after year, that platform has every reason to invest in the show, promote it and figure out what actually works. Under the “wheel” system, a network could pour money into a great telecast and then gift the audience it built to a rival the following fall. The Emmys never had the room to evolve in this way. One year is barely enough time to find the bathrooms at the Peacock Theater, let alone build an audience around a new idea.
I wonder if the Academy remembers what happened the last time one company took control?
An earlier wheel rotated the Emmys among ABC, CBS and NBC from 1966 to 1986. Then, in 1987, a hungry, low-rated Fox outbid the Big Three for exclusive rights. The ratings then cratered. One of those years didn’t have a host (1988), and went from nearly 36 million in 1986 to just over 12 million in 1990. The Emmys spent much of the next decade clawing back toward a shared model, in part because a television partner with a constant horse in the race had real value.
An “agnostic” partner is hard to find, and that neutrality is difficult to defend when the networks themselves are no longer where a significant part of the audience lives. But dropping an awards show onto a streaming service does not necessarily make the audience grow.
Look at the SAG Awards, now rebranded “The Actor Awards.” In 2024, the Screen Actors Guild moved its ceremony to Netflix, swapping TNT and TBS for the biggest streaming subscriber base on the planet. The result was 1.8 million views, roughly what the show pulled in its final year on cable. It missed Netflix’s weekly Top 10 in the U.S., but it did crack the Top 10 in Canada. In 2025, the ceremony was tighter, the reviews were better and the show brought Barbra Streisand to the podium for the Life Achievement Award. However, the audience still didn’t meaningfully spike, even with a global platform and hundreds of millions of subscribers. That doesn’t mean that it won’t grow over time.
I don’t think distribution was ever the dilemma awards shows were battling. The problem is that awards shows keep asking audiences to watch them the same way they always have, while audiences have moved on to evolving platforms. SAG drew 2.7 million viewers in 2019, then 2 million, then 1.8 million. The downslide was already underway before Netflix even entered the picture. But now, move a shrinking audience onto a bigger platform and it doesn’t suddenly grow without a reason for viewers to tune in (reminder: SAG, add supporting categories for TV and ensemble prizes for limited).
The next year will be a make-or-break period that the TV Academy needs to take seriously if it wants to ensure its future for another 78 ceremonies. Last year, 7.59 million people watched the ceremony on CBS and the SAG Awards, on the world’s biggest streamer, drew roughly a quarter of that. It’s time to make some of the old guard uncomfortable with some meaningful changes.
Amazon isn’t new to this — Prime Video has streamed the ACM Awards since 2022, making it the first major awards show to move to a streamer. But the Emmys are a different animal, and not only because they are bigger. Let’s remember also that Amazon has dogs in the TV awards fight.
Prime Video landed 48 Emmy nominations this year and took home 10, including five for the now-canceled superhero series “Spider-Noir.” That hands the TV Academy a new wrinkle it cannot ignore: how do you guarantee the platform airing the Emmys doesn’t look like it’s playing with home-field advantage?
During this year’s TV awards season, held on NBC, Variety heard frustration from various publicists and executives at rival studios over a decision to move five categories off the main telecast, which were dominated by streaming series, particularly HBO Max and Netflix. No one is suggesting those complaints point to impropriety, or that the Academy’s voting was somehow compromised. The TV Academy controls the ballot, through its third-party partner Ernst & Young, and its credibility rests on keeping that wall intact. But perception matters, especially when the company producing the telecast is also campaigning for the trophies being handed out.
The Oscars’ deal with YouTube won’t carry quite that same baggage. Google doesn’t yet make prestige television. Prime Video does, campaigning for postapocalyptic drama “Fallout” and fantasy epic “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” like every other studio. If Prime Video ever lands the next “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” the period comedy that once ran the table, rivals will scrutinize every decision around the telecast.
And let’s also remember that streamers and broadcast networks don’t need nor want the same thing from the night.
NBC wants an Emmy telecast that works as television, with a strong lead-in, a broad audience and plenty of advertising inventory. Amazon can think about the evening differently. Its ultimate goal is to serve Prime subscribers, keep viewers inside its ecosystem and stretch the ceremony into days of clips, interviews and social content.
And that could be the real opportunity.
The TV Academy is already trying to make the Emmys smaller and faster, shown by pushing five categories out of the main show. But once the ceremony lives on a platform where airtime isn’t dictated by a commercial break, why think smaller? Why not think bigger?
The Creative Arts Emmys are split across two nights. So why not turn the whole celebration of television into an Emmys weekend, all 116 categories running Friday through Sunday? Give the Creative Arts ceremonies their own red carpets and live broadcasts (which they do not currently have). Make room for the meaningful speeches, and make room for all the creatives (aka artisans) whose work makes the shows being celebrated possible in the first place. Now it actually could make sense to include music performances from the nominated songs for music and lyrics. Now, you have the chance for viral moments.
The artisans are not second-class citizens of this industry, though the telecast (and Hollywood in general) has relegated them away from the spotlight for decades. Amazon and the TV Academy can change that, because it doesn’t have to think like a network. They can firmly ask themselves what can make the viewers more invested and interested in these categories and crafts and then execute.
But if the Academy is going to rethink where and how the Emmys are presented, it should take an equally hard look at how the awards themselves are structured. The problems are no longer confined to the telecast. They also live in the categories themselves, the ballots and, increasingly, the basic question of who even gets seen by the people voting.
This calls for a real Emmys task force, one that pulls from across the industry sectors, rather than another small group charged with fixing one category at a time. Directors, writers, actors, editors, cinematographers, costume designers, sound professionals, craftspeople, reality performers and digital creators all deserve a seat at the table, alongside awards strategists and voters who understand how the rules actually play out once the ballots land. The mandate should be broad, with firm category definitions, nominee counts, peer-group voting, ballot presentation, eligibility and the widening gap between scripted, unscripted, limited, variety and digital programming. The point shouldn’t be to manufacture more trophies. It’s to make sure the work being judged is judged on a level playing field.
Variety has floated plenty of ideas back in May 2025, from a reality performer category to a rethink of guest acting (again), standardized acting nominee counts, letting members opt into additional fields after certifying they’ve watched the work, a reconsidered limited series structure and pulling premium digital programming (i.e., creators and influencers) further into the Emmy fold. Some could work, and admittedly, others might not. But that’s exactly why the Academy needs to weigh them together, in an open forum and not one at a time. The Emmys need a full and comprehensive rules review that starts with a simple question: Does this system still make sense for the television industry we actually have?
But of course, more time does not automatically equate to better time.
As it stands, one-half of the EGOT foursome will have its own corner of the streaming universe. The Grammys are coming to ABC in 2027, while the Tonys appear to have a home on CBS, with a simulcast on Paramount+ to expand the audience. And if the Television Academy is going to bundle its show with a two-day shipping option, it could leave the Emmys right where they are now — only with fewer parachutes when things go wrong.
Oh, and next year, get John Mulaney to host.
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