The Emmys

The Emmys

The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with their own set of rules and award categories. The two events that receive the most media coverage are the Primetime Emmy Awards and the Daytime Emmy Awards, which recognize outstanding work in American primetime and daytime entertainment programming, respectively. Other notable U.S. national Emmy events include the Children's & Family Emmy Awards for children's and family-oriented television programming, the Sports Emmy Awards for sports programming, News & Documentary Emmy Awards for news and documentary shows, and the Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards and the Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards for technological and engineering achievements. Regional Emmy Awards are also presented throughout the country at various times through the year, recognizing excellence in local and statewide television. In addition, the International Emmy Awards honor excellence in TV programming produced and initially aired outside the United States. The Emmy statuette, depicting a winged woman holding an atom, is named after "immy", an informal term for the image orthicon tube that was common in early television cameras. It is considered one of the four major annual American entertainment awards, along with the Grammy for music, the Oscar (Academy Award) for film, and the Tony for stage theatre.The Emmys are presented by three related, but separate, organizations: the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), and the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (IATAS). Each of these three organizations are responsible for administering a particular set of Emmy Award ceremonies. The ATAS first awarded Emmys in 1949 to honor shows produced in the Los Angeles area before it became a national event in the 1950s to honor programs aired nationwide. Over the next two decades, the ATAS, the NATAS, and the IATAS expanded the award to honor other sectors of the TV industry.

Update this biography »
Complete biography of The Emmys »