Hollywood strike delays Emmy Awards for the first time in decades

The Emmy Awards will be significantly delayed for the first time in more than two decades amid a dual strike that has virtually shut down Hollywood.

A person familiar with the delay, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter before an announcement has been made, told The Washington Post that the 75th annual ceremony will be pushed back from its originally scheduled air date of Sept. 18.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the show has been rescheduled for January, but The Post could not confirm that. Variety previously reported that the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which presents the awards, wanted to push the ceremony to November, while the broadcaster, Fox, preferred a longer delay.

The last time the Emmys aired after September was in 2001, when the 9/11 terrorist attacks and subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan pushed the show into November. The show was not even postponed when the pandemic shut down Hollywood in 2020. It went virtual instead.

But this year’s ceremony had been widely expected to be delayed because of the historic strike in the U.S. entertainment industry. Nearly all Hollywood writers stopped work in May, and tens of thousands of TV and film actors joined them in July, barely two days after the Emmy nominees were announced. The striking actors are barred by their union not only from working for major studios, but also from promoting projects or appearing in award shows.

Among this year’s contenders for top awards is the HBO drama “Succession,” about a dysfunctional family of billionaires. One of its stars, Brian Cox, raged against studios at a solidarity rally in London last week, saying that low pay and the encroachment of artificial intelligence technology has put actors “at the thin edge of a really horrible wedge.” The Washington Post