The Primetime Emmys will air on Sunday, September 20 on ABC at 8 p.m. ET. The three-hour event will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. The event will be streamed on ABC.com, and cord-cutters also can tune in to the festivities via streaming services such as Hulu + Live TV or YouTube TV, both of which offer free trials. The 2020 installment of the Primetime Emmys will mark Kimmel’s third time as host. Kimmel’s late-night show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” airs on ABC. Kimmel previously hosted the 64th and 68th Emmy Awards. As for the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, the Television Academy spread the event throughout the week, breaking up the categories into five nights total. Monday, September 14, served as the kickoff for the four-night event of digital-only ceremonies, which aired on YouTube and Emmys.com. The rest of the Creative Arts winners were announced on Saturday, September 19 on FXX at 8 p.m. ET. The result of the COVID-inspired streaming experiment were decidedly rough, according to IndieWire TV Critic and Deputy TV Editor Ben Travers. “This is the highest honor the industry can bestow on its TV artisans, and there was no indication that the TV Academy cared that much about imparting such a feeling to its nominees, colleagues, or viewers in general,” he wrote. “The assumption that no one should care enough to watch more than one night of the Creative Arts Emmys works in active contrast to the spirit of the awards themselves.”
The overall Creative Arts events awarded winners in 100 categories over themed nights for Reality, Nonfiction, Variety, and Scripted programming. While the 2020 Primetime Emmys will take place during a period of unprecedented uncertainty for the television industry, the recent 2020 Emmy nominations were as full of snubs, surprises, and all manner of excitement as the Emmys always have been. HBO’s “Watchmen” emerged from the latest round of Emmy nominations as 2020’s television show to beat. The acclaimed sequel to the timeless comic earned 26 Emmy nominations, including an Outstanding Limited Series nomination, and helped HBO Entertainment lead the pack as the year’s most successful studio in terms of Emmy nominations. Other surprises from the recent Emmy nominations include the unexpected Outstanding Drama Series nomination for Disney+ tentpole “The Mandalorian,” which beat out competitors such as Apple TV+’s “The Morning Show.” Other unexpected events included the continued snubbing of the “Better Call Saul” cast for various acting nominations, as well as the sharp drop in nominations for HBO’s “Westworld,” according to IndieWire’s Ben Travers.
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