The hottest award show of the television is reportedly postponed amid ongoing writers’ and actors’ protest in Hollywood. The news has been confirmed by vendors, stating that the TV academy has pushed back the dates of the awards ceremony in leiu of SAG – AFTRA strike.
The Emmy Awards had been scheduled to take in September as every year, but have been postponed due to Hollywood strikes. No new date has been proposed as of now, as the organisers want to wait until an agreement has been met with the TV companies.
Image source : Forbes
Emmys are considered the Oscars of television meaning the most prestigious award a TV show or individual involved can get. It was formed by the The National Academy and presented its first award in 1949. This year it is expected to present its 75th year of celebration of talent on television.
Members of the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild ( SAG – AFTRA) are striking in the biggest walkout for 60 years resulting in an inability to appear at the award show. Their refusal means neither they will work for the preparation of the show nor they will adorn the shows with their presence causing an absolute dip in the proficiency and publicity of the function.
According to Variety, which first reported the news, the vendors for the event have been informed about the delay, although an official announcement is still in the waitings to be made.
The event’s broadcaster is Fox which had previously indicated that it will not go ahead with the ceremony if either the Writers Guild of America or SAG-AFTRA were still on strike at the end of July, but as July nears end with no signs of the strike going dull a new date is due to be be suggested.
Fox is expected to announce a new date for the ceremony soon which is expected to be moved to January against the original placeholder date of September 18th. Along with the Primetime Emmys, the delay is also sure to impact the Creative Arts Emmys, which celebrate artistic and technical achievements in television and were scheduled to take place on September 9 and 10.
This year’s Emmy nominations were announced in July with Succession, The White Lotus, The Last of Us and Ted Lasso leading this year’s nominees. Ted Lasso and Succession have also been stars of the Emmy from previous year and is in the hopes of fan’s to bag the most awards this year too.
The WGA and Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) are currently in motion to negotiate with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers over a series of related issues, including the use of Artificial Intelligence in productions which has been the alcohol in the heat of the strike. The negotiation also aims to ensure fair split of profits in the complications of online streaming.The SAG AFTRA strike took off on July 14th while the Writers Guild of America was already fighting for fairer labour rights. The strike has been backed by more than 1,60,000 members of the union. Reportedly, production of many big budget movies such as Avatar 5, many sequels of Avengers from Disney and Batman from Warner Bros are postponed amidst the rising concerns of writers and actors combined.
WGA writers are often employed to write material for hosts and presenters, to deliver the funny monologues and speeches as we know it, meaning it be almost impossible for a show to go ahead without their contribution.
This is the first time the Emmys have been postponed in more than 20 years as the last time it was postponed was in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 causing a diluted version of the awards to be presented.
However, voting in the awards is still set as usual – to be commenced in the upcoming weeks, but whether the awards will actually be handed out remains to be seen.
