Like Schitt's Creek's unhinged queen Moira Rose, my favorite season of the year, by far, is "awards." The chaotic, self-congratulatory circus that dominates Hollywood and all its offshoots at the top of every year is jam-packed with all of my favorite things: thought-provoking films, binge-worthy television, moving musical performances, eye-catching designer fashions, and plenty of backstage drama. (See: the infamous Best Picture mix-up between La La Land and Moonlight, that explosive Will Smith-Chris Rock slap, among many others.) There was a change for the most recent season, however, and I need the Emmys to change right back.
Where the majority of awards show ceremonies take place in the first quarter of each year—the 2024 Golden Globes were held this January, with the Grammys to come in February, and the 96th annual Academy Awards to follow in March—there's always been one notable Hollywood exception: the Emmy Awards.
Honoring the best in American television programming, the Emmys are usually held on a Sunday in September, with the Television Academy nominating shows that aired in the window between the start of summer of the previous year and the spring of the current one. It's a nod to the broadcast television season kicking off in September and ending in May each year, rather than following the traditional calendar year. For example, the most recent 75th annual Emmy Awards honored programming that aired between June 1, 2022, until May 31, 2023.
However, due to 2023's lengthy WGA strike and subsequent SAG-AFTRA strike, that long-running tradition of having a fall-scheduled Emmys ceremony was changed, with the ceremony delayed four months and airing on Monday, January 15. That placed the TV-focused awards show smack dab in the middle of an already-packed awards schedule. In fact, the Emmys aired eight days after the Globes and only a day after the Critics Choice Awards; even more exhaustingly, there was a large amount of overlap in the chosen winners from all three awards bodies.
Sure, we were delighted to see the Succession cast mates Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, and Matthew Macfadyen dominate the dramatic categories, with The Bear's dynamic duo of Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri doing the same on the comedy side. But seeing it happen thrice in the span of just over a single week was fatiguing, even for a card-carrying awards lover like me.
And the January move proved to be detrimental for the Television Academy's broadcast, as – despite the ceremony itself being dubbed "the best in years" by CinemaBlend – only 4.3 million viewers tuned into the Monday-night telecast. That total is the lowest number in Emmys history, reports The New York Times. If you ask me, holding the TV awards into the rest of the regular season shortchanges its stars.
At hybrid ceremonies that honor both film and television, like the Globes, there's the distinct sense that TV is considered the "lesser" of the two mediums. The big final awards of the evening are routinely reserved for film categories and sitcom actresses like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have poked fun at the fact that movie stars are widely considered more prestigious and glamorous than their TV counterparts.
Holding the Emmy Awards in September not only gives a little extra room to breathe during awards season, but it also offers up a much-deserved spotlight on those television actors, without the threat of a movie star coming to steal their thunder. For their sake—and my own sleep schedule—the Emmys need to reclaim their rightful spot on the fall 2024 TV schedule.
