The biggest showcase for the television industry is leaving broadcast television.
Amazon Prime Video won the distribution rights to the Emmys Awards, the Television Academy announced on Tuesday, putting the industry’s signature event exclusively on a streaming service. The Emmys telecast, which rotated among the four broadcast networks for decades, will start streaming on Amazon next September as part of a six-year deal.
The Emmys will stream for free and not require a Prime Video subscription, the academy said. Amazon will also make the event available all over the world.
It’s the second major awards show that will soon be available only over the internet. In 2029, the Oscars will leave their longtime home, ABC, and head over to YouTube.
The Emmys’ move to streaming is, of course, symbolic of broader trends in the industry. In July, 49 percent of all television viewing in the United States was on a streaming service, according to Nielsen, dwarfing broadcast’s 19.5 percent.
Cris Abrego, the chairman of the Television Academy, acknowledged in an interview that the Emmys move off broadcast for the first time since their inception in 1949 was “a pretty big step.”
“Obviously, television in itself is evolving in real time,” he continued. “But I actually think the distinction between broadcast and streaming is becoming less meaningful every year. Most of our longtime broadcast partners themselves are part of companies with major streaming platforms.”
For the last three decades, the Emmys telecast alternated among ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. Twenty years ago, the ceremony drew 16 million viewers. A decade ago it was 11 million. This year, the Emmys had lower viewership (6.8 million viewers on NBC) than the Oscars on ABC (17.9 million) and the Grammys on CBS (14.4 million). Even the Video Music Awards, which appeared on CBS and MTV last month, had more viewers (nine million).
Emmy voters’ taste has drifted decidedly away from network television as well. During the prime-time ceremony last month, 18 of the 19 awards handed out went to a streaming or cable program. CBS claimed the only win for broadcast, and that was for a show (“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert”) no longer on the air because the network canceled it.
The academy’s tendency to favor shows on cable and streamers is one of the reasons the broadcast networks became frustrated with the Emmys in recent years, and seemed less likely to make an aggressive collective bid for the rights.
But others in the industry have been critical of the so-called network wheel deal, arguing that one of the reasons the Emmys could be a more muted affair than other award shows was that no single network was committed to investing in it.
Enter Prime Video.
Mike Hopkins, the head of Prime Video, said in an interview that he believed Amazon could help “energize it and age the audience down and grow it over time.”
Mr. Abrego said having one outlet dedicated to the Emmys would only help.
The show is in September, but with the rotation, “sometimes we don’t start thinking about it until March, April of that year, right?” he said. “We have the ability to start thinking this, you know, tomorrow and start building toward that telecast.”
In recent years, the four broadcast networks collectively paid the academy roughly $9.5 million for the annual rights, according to public filings. Mr. Abrego would not disclose how much Amazon was paying but said the amount was a “meaningful investment across the board.”
The Emmys will proceed normally next year with its usual September date, but Mr. Abrego suggested that could change in future years.
Streaming services have increasingly invested in live events. Amazon has the rights to weekly National Football League games, a National Basketball Association package and the Academy of Country Music Awards. Netflix has made deals with the N.F.L., Major League Baseball, the women’s World Cup and the Actor Awards, formerly the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards.
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