The 66th Primetime Emmy Awards will air on NBC this year, and it looks like the Peacock is up for strutting out its Late Night talent as host again. Seth Meyers has been signed on to host the Emmy Awards telecast, which airs at the end of August and celebrates some of the best TV has had to offer throughout the past year.
The Emmy Awards rotate through the four major broadcast networks. Neil Patrick Harris hosted it for CBS last year. Jimmy Kimmel and Jane Lynch hosted it for ABC and Fox respectively in the years before that. The last time NBC had the ceremony was 2010, and their Late Night host Jimmy Fallon led the show. Just as Fallon has passed the Late Night torch to Seth Meyers, it seems he's passed the Emmy Awards torch as well.
The 66th Primetime Emmy Awards will be telecast on Monday, August 25 at 8:00 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on NBC from the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in Los Angeles. It's well worth noting the odd date choice, as big award shows tend to air on Sunday nights, but NBC's going with a Monday this year. Fortunately, it'll be Summer, so the event hopefully won't conflict much with our regularly scheduled TV viewing.
Not only is NBC utilizing their late night talent for the award show, but this should also hopefully give Seth Meyers a bit more mainstream exposure for his late night talk show. Not that he's an unknown by any stretch. Meyers made a name for himself as a writer and "Weekend Update" co-anchor on NBC's long-running sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live before exiting the series to host Late Night. As NBC notes, it's been a big year for Meyers. Not only did he succeed Jimmy Fallon at Late Night, but he was recently named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world for 2014.
In terms of his hosting abilities, Meyers isn't a novice at leading award shows. As THR points out, Meyers hosted the 2010 and 2011 ESPY Awards on ESPN, and he hosted the 2011 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. So he has some experience to draw from as he steps in front of some of television's brightest talent this year. As a fan of his witty, occasionally smirky humor, I'll be interested in seeing what he brings to the award show.
Meyers is still settling into his position as host of Late Night, but he's getting there. Here's a segment from this week, which has the 40-year-old going all Mr. Rogers as he talks about how things were in his day...
The 66th Primetime Emmy Awards nominations will be announced July 10.
