Television Academy trades the Emmys' network rotation for six years on Prime Video

Under the Wheel Deal, ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC each carried the ceremony one year in four ^[3][17]. Cris Abrego, the Academy's chairman, described what that cost. "Continuity is a big part of what we're looking for because the rotating part of it basically meant in many ways that we were starting over every year," he told the Associated Press. "With one partner over six years, we can really learn together and build from year to year together." ^[5]

The bigger commercial change is in what the host wants. In my view, a network that would not get the show back for another three years had little reason to build it up in between ^[17]. Amazon has a catalogue reason to. "We will have the opportunity throughout the year to be promoting Emmy nominees to our customers as a way of saying 'Hey, watch these shows, but also watch the Emmys,'" said Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios ^[11]. The top winners at the last two ceremonies, "Widow's Bay" and "The Studio", both stream on Prime Video through its partnership with Apple TV ^[10].

Abrego names reach as one of the reasons for the choice. "We want reach, we want access, and we felt Amazon was in line with that," he said ^[12]. The free-viewing condition deals with the paywall ^[6]. A skeptic would say a free stream is still harder to come across than a network channel, because the viewer has to open a streaming service and look for it. The answer is that the broadcast audience had already shrunk. The show drew more than 20 million viewers at its peak and draws around 7 million now ^[9], no more than about 35 percent of its best ^[18].

Amazon is taking the show on with less than a year to prepare. The Oscars' new partner got roughly four years ^[19]. "We're on the clock, we gotta get rolling," Hopkins said ^[8]. Live events are not new to the service. Amazon first aired an NFL game nearly a decade ago ^[13]. "We look at our service as something that's a hybrid between live and on-demand, and we've made live a real priority," he said ^[14].

The 2027 ceremony stays in September ^[16], inside the football calendar that beat this year's show ^[15]. Abrego left the later years open. "We had conversations with Amazon, if we wanted to change that date moving forward with time, we could explore it and we would be open to it," he said ^[16].

The decision taken now ties the Academy to one partner through what would be the 84th ceremony in 2032, if the deal covers one show a year ^[20]. The first result arrives next September, when the 79th ceremony streams ^[4]. The published account of the deal does not include its financial terms or say how a Prime Video audience will be measured against broadcast ratings.