Emmy Awards Enter Streaming Era: Prime Video, TV Academy Ink Six-Year Deal

The Television Academy and Prime Video have signed a six-year deal that will make the Amazon-owned streamer the exclusive home of the Primetime Emmys from 2027-32. Next year’s ceremony will mark the first time in the 79-year history of the awards that they won’t air on a broadcast outlet.

Under the new deal, Prime Video may also carry other Television Academy programming, like the Hall of Fame and Television Academy Honors ceremony. The televised future of the Creative Arts Emmys, which have aired on FXX for the past decade-plus, is still being discussed.

The Emmys will also be the first of the EGOT awards — Emmys, Grammys, Oscars and Tonys — to be exclusive to a streaming platform. Late last year, the Oscars announced a move to YouTube, but that won’t happen until the 2029 ceremony; ABC still has rights to the 2027 and 2028 shows.

The agreement with Prime Video is “truly an opportunity to rethink the model and not simply just renew the deal,” TV Academy chair Cris Abrego said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “For me, continuity was a big part of that. … Rotating [between the big four broadcast networks] every year meant in many ways that we were starting over again with a new partner. That included everything from the creative, bringing on a new producer, to building partnerships with brands. That was always one of the challenges with the wheel agreement.”

Abrego said the academy did discuss a renewal with the broadcast networks and talked with other outlets before striking the Prime Video deal. In discussions with Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, “Mike just he really got it,” Abrego said. “Having the ability to have one partner over six years together, to learn from that from year to year and really build from that, became exactly what we all were aligned with and wanted to do.”

Another factor in moving the Emmys to Prime Video is the streamer’s global footprint. The Emmys have long had international broadcast partners, but the appeal of having the awards in one place worldwide was strong. Prime Video will also make the Emmy telecast free for anyone, Prime subscriber or not, to watch.

“That was crucial to us, and again, to Mike and Amazon’s credit, it was something they understood right away,” Abrego said. “Access has been something I have prioritized from the very start. Exclusivity in the honors should never mean exclusivity in access. Removing the paywall means we are inviting every single fan on the planet to get a front row seat to the Emmys.”

Said Hopkins in a statement, “For nearly eight decades the Emmys have recognized the best storytelling and talent in television, and we’re honored that Prime Video will be trusted as the global home for this celebration over the next six years. We look forward to collaborating with the Television Academy on this iconic event.”

The broadcast network rotation for the Emmys — between ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC — has been in place in its current form since the mid-1990s. The awards had a six-year run exclusively on Fox from 1987-92, then two years on ABC in 1993 and ’94 before the four-year “wheel” arrangement began. The networks’ most recent deal with the academy ended with this year’s Emmys, which aired on NBC and Peacock. Reports that the TV Academy and Prime Video were in talks broke the day after the ceremony.

The 2026 Emmys were just three weeks ago, so planning for the 2027 telecast hasn’t begun in earnest yet. But Abrego told THR that he’s excited about the possibilities under the new deal.

“My day job [as CEO of Eva Longoria’s Hyphenate Media Group] is developing and working on projects, and it’s the best part,” he said. “Similarly here, the conversations we’ve had are really exciting about what the possibilities are. Both sides, the academy and Amazon, are focused on making a great, great, entertaining, meaningful, celebratory show.”