The Television Academy and FOX have rescheduled the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony, which will now air live on Monday, Jan. 15 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.
Meanwhile, the Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be held over two consecutive nights — Saturday, Jan. 6 and Sunday, Jan. 7 — at the Peacock Theater at LA Live, with an edited version set to air on FXX at 8:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific on Saturday, Jan. 13.
Emmy voting will continue to take place in the originally scheduled Aug. 18-Aug. 28 window, meaning the ballots will be turned in almost five months before the winners are revealed.
The announcement of a new date completes a move that began in late July, when the academy and the network postponed the show originally scheduled for Sept. 18 date because of the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.
During the strike, members of the Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild are forbidden from attending awards shows. This would have meant an Emmy ceremony without any of the acting or writing nominees, and without stars to serve as presenters. That broadcast would almost certainly receive abysmally low ratings in a time when awards shows are already struggling to regain viewership lost over the past decade and during the pandemic.
While the Television Academy had reportedly expressed interest in an earlier air date, perhaps in November, Fox opted for January as the first date that made sense for its primetime schedule. The network airs the Emmys every four years as part of a rotation with ABC, CBS and NBC.
The January date puts the Emmys in the middle of a month that will be crowded with other events, including the Golden Globe Awards (Jan. 7), the Critics Choice Awards (Jan. 14) and the Sundance Film Festival (Jan. 18-24). It also puts the Emmys in the unenviable position of giving out awards for shows that aired between June 1, 2022 and May 31, 2023, a full seven to 19 months prior to the ceremony.
Other early 2024 awards shows, including Critics Choice, the Golden Globes and guild ceremonies, will be honoring the best from the 2023 calendar year, which could make them potentially feel much more current than the Emmys.
For all of TheWrap’s WGA strike coverage, click here.