In a sign of the changing times, the Emmys are officially leaving broadcast TV. Beginning next year, television’s biggest awards show will stream on Prime Video for at least the next six years.
Amazon announced Tuesday that it struck a new deal with the Television Academy, making Prime Video the exclusive global home of the Emmys from 2027 through 2032. The awards will stream live for free in September, with no Prime subscription required, in more than 240 countries and territories.
“Television has never been more global, and the Emmys should be a celebration that the world can share,” Cris Abrego, chair of the Television Academy, said in Amazon’s announcement.
The move ends a decades-long tradition of the Emmys rotating among the four major U.S. broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. It will also mark the first time the awards show has had a single dedicated home.
The Television Academy was founded in 1946, while the first Emmy Awards were held in 1949 and broadcast locally in Los Angeles.
This year’s Emmys aired on NBC, with Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay and HBO Max’s The Pitt taking home the top awards for comedy and drama, respectively. Notably, both are streaming originals.
The ceremony, hosted by Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay, drew about 6.7 million viewers, down nearly 10% from last year, according to the Associated Press. That was still well above the record low of 4.3 million viewers in January 2024, but far below the nearly 22 million people who watched the Emmys in 2000.
The decline comes as more Americans spend their TV time on streaming services. Nielsen reported that streaming accounted for 49% of all TV viewing in July, compared with 19.5% for broadcast and 18.7% for cable.
And the Emmys are hardly the first major awards show to make the switch.
The Screen Actors Guild Awards have streamed exclusively on Netflix since 2024. Meanwhile, the Oscars, which have aired on ABC for decades, will move to YouTube beginning in 2029 under a deal announced last December that runs through 2033.
The moves are part of a broader push by streaming companies to scoop up major live events as they compete for viewers and increasingly, advertising dollars.
Amazon introduced ads to Prime Video in 2024, becoming one of the last major streaming services to roll out ads. The industry has increasingly embraced ads as a revenue source that can grow with viewership rather than relying solely on adding new subscribers.
As a result, going ad-free now comes at an extra cost, while more budget-friendly plans are subsidized by advertisers. Just this year, Amazon also raised the price of watching Prime Video without ads.
