The Emmy Awards ceremony, the most prestigious awards on American television, has been postponed for almost four months, its organizers announced on Thursday, the strike of actors and screenwriters paralyzing Hollywood. The equivalent of the Oscars for television, the Emmy Awards which were originally scheduled to be held on September 18, will take place in mid-January 2024, Fox and the Television Academy announced in a press release.
“We are pleased to announce that the 75th Emmy Awards will be broadcast on Monday, January 15, 2024,” said a spokesperson for the American television channel, which is broadcasting the ceremony. This is the most important event in the entertainment sector affected so far by this double social movement, never seen since 1960 in Hollywood. The last postponement of the Emmy Awards ceremony dates back to 2001, in the context of the September 11 attacks.
Come to an agreement
The screenwriters, on strike for more than a hundred days, were joined in July by actors from the powerful SAG-AFTRA union. Due to the current strike, the ceremony would have taken place in the absence of the named stars and invited American celebrities, which would have had a disastrous effect on television audiences.
The directives of SAG-AFTRA, which represents 160,000 actors, stuntmen, dancers and other professionals on the small and big screen, indeed prohibit all its members from shooting, but also from promoting their productions, in person or on social networks. And the writers could not have prepared the presenter’s speech or jokes.
The nearly four-month postponement is intended to give the two sides time to reach an agreement, although the gap between the powerful screenwriters union (WGA) and the bosses of studios and streaming platforms still seems wide open. The strikes in Hollywood shut down all American film and television productions, with a few exceptions, such as reality shows and game shows.