With the Emmys coming up in September of this year and nominations being in less than a week, many television executives are looking to the future of the ceremony. The upcoming Primetime Emmy Awards will be the last before the eight-year extension, which was signed back in 2018, expires. According to Deadline, the Television Academy is currently talking about where the ceremony will be aired from next year onwards.
The Academy, which is led by chairman Cris Abrego, has discussed with many networks and streaming services about the future of the ceremony’s streaming rights. One possibility of what will happen is that one network or service will take the rights and keep them exclusive, only airing the ceremony on their network. Another possibility is what has been happening over the last 30 years, with a wheel approach, with four networks sharing the rights and passing the ceremony between networks each year.
Something else that could happen is that the ceremony will be simulcast. This would lead to multiple networks and services streaming the ceremony at the same time, drawing in many viewers from different sources.
If this were to happen, all those who streamed it would share the cost of the streaming rights, which is assumed to be around $10 million per year, and they would all split the production cost. For the last four years, Jesse Collins Entertainment has produced the ceremony, with a different company being hired to advertise it each year.
According to Deadline, all of the major streaming services are very cautious about gaining the streaming rights due to the event no longer being a large source of revenue. The fact that no service has bought the rights yet is surprising, especially with YouTube making itself a large competitor by getting the rights for the Oscars from Disney starting in 2029.
Though the streaming services have no interest in streaming the Emmys, they do care about their talent being recognized. Because of this, they are likely to prefer dominating the Emmys by winning rather than getting income through streaming it.
Many of the networks that continue to pay to host the Emmys continue to have dwindling award counters. Last year, ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC accounted for 99 nominations, which is down from the 115 they earned the year before. CBS and HBO were the only networks to win last year, with HBO winning nine awards, Apple winning seven awards, and Netflix winning six.
There will be a meeting between Abrego and executives around the middle of July, where the rights will be discussed further.