Behind the scenes of the Emmys

Behind the scenes of the Emmys

The Emmy Awards are television's biggest night - the one where the small screen gets dressed up and hands out the hardware. But in the midst of the red carpets and the awards races, it can be easy to forget why the industry actually does this - what the whole point of an expensive awards ceremony for TV actually is. So in this Squiz Shortcut, we'll take a look at:

• How the Emmys became the biggest awards ceremony for television

• Why winning one is such a big deal

• And who's in the running this year

🙋🏻‍♀️ This newsletter was written by Larissa Huntington and Andrew Williams

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Squiz the Shortcut

Let’s talk TV… What makes the Emmys different from other Hollywood awards?
The Emmys are to TV what the Oscars are to movies - they honour excellence in the television industry and you’d have to assume they’re what every actor, director, producer and scriptwriter involved in TV wants sitting on their mantelpiece. 

Have they always been a big deal?
Streaming has really brought TV along in that it’s become a quality watching experience over the past decade - there’s a lot of variety, and the budgets and standards have really lifted, attracting some major talent. That’s made the Emmys arguably as much of a big deal as the Oscars. 

There seem to be a lot of different types of Emmys…
That’s because the Emmys cover pretty much the whole TV universe. There are Primetime Emmys, Daytime Emmys, Sports Emmys, Children’s programming Emmys, International Emmys - even News Emmys… 

What does Emmy stand for?
It’s a nickname rather than an acronym… Back in the late 1940s when the Television Academy was choosing a name for its new award, its future President Harry Lubcke suggested ‘Immy’ - short for image-orthicon - which was a camera tube used in early television production that made live TV broadcasts possible. But when they designed the trophy, which features a winged woman holding an atom (the wings represent the muse of art, while the atom represents the science and technology behind television) they feminised the name to Emmy.

Tell me about the Primetime Emmys…
They’re the big Hollywood awards that recognise the TV shows and performances lots of us have been watching over in the past year. And there are a few things that set this year’s ceremony apart - for starters, there’s a new host…

Who’s hosting?
DUN DUN… It’s Mariska Hargitay, who we’ll never not know as Detective Olivia Benson from Law & Order: SVU. She’s the first woman to host solo in 15 years - and she’s coming into the gig on a high note, having just won 2 Creative Arts Emmys (yep that’s another category) for directing and producing a documentary about her mother, the late movie star Jayne Mansfield. 

Any other differences this year?
Yep, it’s changing nights - moving from Sunday to Monday night - to accommodate the NFL schedule. The big TV networks take turns broadcasting the Emmys every 4 years. This year, it’s NBC’s turn - but it also holds the rights to the NFL’s Sunday Night Football, which is a huge deal in the US, so they’ve shifted the Emmys to avoid hurting their own viewership… 

Let’s rewind a bit… When did the Emmys begin?
Back in 1949, when television itself was a relatively new thing. The first ceremony was held at the Hollywood Athletic Club in LA, with just 6 awards handed out. And the first ever Emmy winner was… A ventriloquist. 

Go on…
It was awarded to 20yo Shirley Dinsdale who won Outstanding Television Personality for her children’s show Judy Splinters featuring a (kinda creepy…) puppet of the same name. Over time, the awards got bigger, and by 1952, programmes from all across the US could compete. Basically, as television exploded through the 50s, so did the Emmys. 

Any memorable moments?
Loads… One that M*A*S*H fans might remember or at least have heard about was when the actor Alan Alda did a cartwheel down the aisle in 1979 after winning for his writing. Another was in 2024 when Pedro Pascal appeared onstage with his arm in a sling and told the crowd Kieran Culkin had beaten him up. And during the pandemic, no one will forget host Jimmy Kimmel presenting from an empty Staples Center while nominees accepted awards all dressed up in their homes.

How influential are the Emmys?
Very… They also hold the power to influence what shows become the most popular, and in turn, which directors, actors and writers get paid the most.

Tell me more about that…
When a show wins an Emmy, it gets a massive boost in visibility. Networks get more viewers - and advertising dollars - and actors who are even just nominated can command much higher salaries for future projects. 

Got any examples?
The limited series Adolescence won a bunch of awards last year from out of nowhere. The teen star Owen Cooper has basically set up his future career off the back of his performance, which earned him an Emmy (he’s the youngest male to win one). After that, he got great reviews for playing young Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, and next up, reports say he’s in talks with director Ridley Scott to play Jim Hawkins in a film adaptation of Treasure Island.

How does the voting work?
When it comes to voting at the Emmys, the winners are voted for by peers, rather than fans. They’re chosen by the Television Academy - a group of over 20,000 TV professionals including actors, writers, directors and crew. They’re divided into peer groups - performers are in the actors' one, writers have one, camera crews are in the cinematographers’ group, and so on - there’s around 30 groups.

When does it kick off?
Every year in Spring in the US (so that’s Autumn for us here in Oz) the networks put in entries, and then they’re narrowed down by 2 rounds of voting - round one is in June to vote for the finalists, and round 2 is in August when the winners are chosen.

What do voters have to keep in mind?
Another key difference between the Emmys and Oscars is that, with the Oscars, a new batch of movies is released every year, whereas the TV shows in the running for Emmys are often coming back year after year, leading to some nominees winning several years in a row. A couple of examples are The Daily Show winning Outstanding Variety Series 10 years on the trot, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus winning 6 years in a row for her performance on Veep.

What if it’s deserved?
No one’s coming for Julia’s Emmys, but some of those streaks have led to criticism that the ceremony doesn’t reward new shows and new talent enough - especially in the ongoing series categories. Which leads us to the other issue with the Emmys - there’s just so much television.

Well, it is a TV awards show…
Course… But the idea that all the judges could watch every episode of TV that’s produced and make an informed decision is impossible - there literally isn’t enough time. So the way they tackle that is by nominees submitting episodes they’re particularly proud of instead of the whole season of work. Even then, it’s a lot of episodes to get through. So there are some accusations that some judges are just picking the shows they liked last year and calling it a day. We’re not saying that’s happened this year - but some have pointed out that a lot of the same names are getting a run…

What are some of the big showdowns this year?
Last year’s Outstanding Drama Winner The Pitt - which you can watch on HBO Max - has 25 nominations. That’s the most of any show this year, but it has a new challenger in Pluribus, an Apple TV show. Now this is a new show, but it comes from a creator who has won a stack of awards - Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul…

So, old show v new show, but new show comes with established pedigree?
Exactly… And there’s a similar battle in the Comedy Series category - Hacks, which picked up a stack of awards, is up against a new buzzy challenger in Widow’s Bay, also on Apple TV… 

Who’s tipped to win?
If we got into all of the favourites and their odds, we’d be here for quite a while - but anyone who’s been glued to their small screen this year will know there are plenty of reasons to tune into the Primetime Emmys ceremony (it’s on Tuesday 15 September - details below), and hopefully now you’ve got a good idea of how it all works.

Onto our Recommendations

Watching: Front runners The Pitt, Hacks and Widow’s Bay.

Watching/Perusing: You can watch this year’s ceremony on Binge from 10am AEST on Tuesday 15 September. And here’s a guide to all of the nominees.

Reading: And here’s a piece about the first Emmy winner Shirley Dinsdale and her puppet Judy Splinters (sorry in advance for the nightmares…).

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