The Emmys officially have a new rights holder.
Amazon on Tuesday closed its deal with the Television Academy, as previewed last month, and it’s a significant pact. The partnership gives Prime Video the right to stream the annual TV awards ceremony for the next six years and is thought to be worth north of $120 million in total.
The streamer has taken global rights to the event but will make it free to view on its Prime Video service each September.
Deadline understands that the deal is worth between $20M-$25M per year, with one source pegging the value at $24M per year.
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The deal succeeds the broadcast wheel, which has seen broadcast networks ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC rotate the rights to air the ceremony each year. That system has been in place for over 30 years, since 1995.
Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, told Deadline that it wanted to create a “global event” on Prime Video.
“We thought we could increase the viewership, bring in a younger audience, work with the Academy to put a lot more energy, and maybe look at the production itself to try to innovate,” he said. “I feel that we can put the Emmys on a path to global growth and relevance that was probably harder to do when it was spinning from network to network and then distributed in various ways around the world.”
The global nature of the deal is interesting, particularly given the fee increase the TV Academy has secured. The broadcast networks have paid between $8M-$10M per year to air in the U.S., but it’s not clear how much revenue the Academy makes from international broadcasters. The event has aired live in a number of international markets including on CTV in Canada, Showcase in Australia, Canal+ in France, TNT across Latin America and Sky Italia, but in many territories it is aired and streamed on smaller services and networks.
Television Academy chair Cris Abrego added that he didn’t want to just renew the wheel deal. “I felt strongly from the outset that this was an opportunity to rethink the model,” he said. “Starting every year with a new partner, trying to find a production partner, a brand partner, trying to bring even the simpleness of learnings from the past event into the next year didn’t matter because of the different institutions… that was very challenging. As television and the industry is evolving, the telecast and much like the Academy needed to evolve, and so having a singular home was my goal from the outset.”
Former Banijay Americas boss Abrego said that making the show free to view, and not behind a paywall, was a “non-negotiable” for the Academy.
“I give Mike credit. From our early conversations, he understood that. It’s not simply just about distributing an award show, they really understood what the Emmys mean to the television community and what we could build around that and we’re really excited about it,” he added.
Amazon has put other events in front of the paywall including a number of Amazon Fire concerts and its Black Friday NFL game. Hopkins pointed to the fact that the company has a “very large ad business.”
“We have we have a variety of other economic levers we can pull to make it make financial sense for us. We also have nearly all of the streaming services as part of Prime Video in our subscription business, and many of this year’s winners are available to our Prime Video customers via driving to HBO Max or Apple TV. We see it as something that sits as part of our entertainment system with customers where we can celebrate these awards and nominees throughout the year. We can be the home of many of the best shows on television today, not just those that we make ourselves, but our partners are the ones that are always every year going to get the lion’s share of awards,” he said.
Amazon itself hasn’t performed particularly well at the Emmys over the last few years; this year, largely thanks to Spider-Noir, which also aired on MGM+, it scored 10 wins; last year, it won five awards at the Creative Arts Emmys and in 2024 it won four.
Hopkins said, “We stand up and clap at the Emmys when our partners win.” This is helped by the fact that Amazon would like to become a one-stop shop for streaming subscribers, as evidenced by recent bundles.
One of the things that both Amazon and the TV Academy stressed was the need to appeal to younger viewers.
“We’ve been talking a lot about it. It’s a little premature to get into specifics, but I think it is about the format. I think it’s about the celebration of certain stories and artists that might appeal to younger audiences. I also think it’s finding ways to promote to those audiences so they’re aware that it’s on,” added Hopkins. “Ultimately, we know that that younger audiences are more inclined to stream than watch broadcast television.”
Amazon does have one star that clearly appeals to younger audiences: MrBeast. Conan O’Brien joked at this year’s Oscars that he was going to be replaced by Jimmy Donaldson, the host of Amazon’s Beast Games, but maybe MrBeast would be a better choice to host the Emmys.
“We hadn’t thought about yet, but if you know him, please give him a call,” laughed Hopkins.
Abrego said the Academy didn’t strike the deal to “just put on the exact same show.” “The amount of categories, the type of categories, the length of the show, the hope is that we have an awards show that’s as relevant and interesting and innovative as the shows that are winning the Emmys,” he said.
He wants to start having those conversations “in the next few days.” “We wouldn’t normally start having these conversations probably until May,” he said. “We could start those conversations tomorrow, and start to really think about that. That’s what’s exciting.”