The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the Primetime Emmys are presented in recognition of excellence in American primetime television programming. The award categories are divided into three classes: the regular Primetime Emmy Awards, the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards to honor technical and other similar behind-the-scenes achievements, and the Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards for recognizing significant contributions to the engineering and technological aspects of television. First given out in 1949, the award was originally referred to as simply the "Emmy Award" until the International Emmy Award and the Daytime Emmy Award were created in the early 1970s to expand the Emmy to other sectors of the television industry.
The Primetime Emmy Awards generally air every September, on the Sunday before the official start of the fall television season. Since 1995, the Emmys have been broadcast in rotation among the four major networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC), each network taking turns to air the ceremony every four years. If NBC broadcasts it, the ceremony is moved to Monday night (in 2006, 2010, and 2014, NBC aired in late-August), so that it does not conflict with NBC's commitment to broadcasting Sunday-night NFL games (due to another conflict, this time with the MTV Video Music Awards, the 2014 ceremony was also shifted to a Monday). The 2018 ceremony and 2022 ceremony, both broadcast by NBC, was moved back to September and aired on a Monday.
History
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) was founded by Syd Cassyd in 1946. The first Emmy ceremony took place on January 25, 1949, at the Hollywood Athletic Club. Tickets cost $5 and only six awards were presented.
The Emmy statuette was designed by Louis McManus. It depicts a winged muse holding an electron, combining visual metaphors for the arts and sciences. The design for the Emmy statuette was chosen after 47 other designs were rejected. The name "Emmy" comes from the nickname "Immy," used to describe the image-orthicon camera tube that was a significant 1940s technical breakthrough in capturing images for television. Because the statue features a female figure holding an electron, the name "Immy" was feminized to "Emmy."
The Emmys originally honored shows produced and aired locally in the Los Angeles area, but soon expanded into a national event in 1952 to honor shows aired nationwide on broadcast television. Originally, there was only one Emmy event held per year to honor shows nationally broadcast in the United States. In 1968, an "Outstanding Achievement in Daytime Programming" category was added once, but due to the voting rules of the time, judges could opt to either award one or no Emmy, and in the end they decided that no one should be nominated. This snub outraged soap opera writer Agnes Nixon, causing her to write in The New York Times, "...after viewing the recent fiasco of the Emmy awards, it may well be considered a mark of distinction to have been ignored by this group." This eventually led to the creation of the separate Daytime Emmy Awards just for daytime programming, run by the sister organization, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS).
Cable programs first became eligible for the Primetime Emmys in 1988. Original online-only streaming television programs then became eligible in 2013.
Between 1949 and 2001, voting members had to watch submissions at the ATAS or local hotels. From 2002–2014, members could watch submissions at home on DVDs. Starting in 2015, members could watch submissions through secure online platforms, with DVDs being eliminated in 2020.
In December 2021, the ATAS and NATAS announced major realignments to the Emmy Awards, accounting for the growth of streaming services by aligning their categories and the ceremonies' scopes around factors such as the themes and frequency of such programming, rather than dayparts: