The Emmys Move From September To January Due To The Hollywood Strikes

As soon as the SAG-AFTRA guild joined the WGA on the picket lines, stemming from the AMPTP guild of producer's refusal to bargain on a new contract for Hollywood's writers and actors, it was obvious that much of the year's awards ceremonies would be in for a major disruption. That inevitability has now become a reality as the 75th Emmy Awards have officially moved off its scheduled airdate of September 18, 2023. According to Variety, the star-studded celebration will now take place on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: Monday, January 15, 2024, at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT on Fox.

Reportedly, Fox and the Television Academy had been pushing for very different postponements. The latter apparently held out hope that the Emmys could manage to be pushed back only until November. Fox, seemingly reading the tea leaves that the dual strikes will likely drag on for quite a while, ultimately won out with a much more realistic timeframe of January of next year. Either way, the writing was on the wall as soon as Emmy vendors had been notified back in late July (also via Variety) that the buzzy awards ceremony wasn't expected to remain on its September schedule.

This comes on the heels of the Emmys announcing their nominations mere days before SAG-AFTRA enacted their strike, on July 12. As part of the announcement, the Creative Arts Emmy Awards have also been moved to January 6 and January 7, 2024. Originally, they were meant to air on September 9 and September 10 of this year. Read on for more details.

The early January awards jockeying is about to get a little more crowded. With the Emmys shifting from September to January, that will put the awards show right up against the Critics Choice Awards on January 14, 2024 and the Golden Globe Awards on January 7. As /Film has previously reported, that ceremony is in for a major overhaul as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has shut down and, as a result, no broadcast partner has actually been announced just yet. The annual SAG Awards, meanwhile, are currently scheduled for February 24, 2024.

In yet another wrinkle, Variety also notes the unusual quirk that the majority of the awards ceremonies will be centered on movies and shows that released between the window of January 1 and December 31, 2023. The Emmys, meanwhile, will cover shows from June 1, 2022, to May 31, 2023. That could very well lead to the same show winning awards for completely different seasons depending on the ceremony — all of which will air within a compressed schedule in early 2024. Even so, Emmy awards voters are still required to get their ballots in by August 28, 2023, after which the results will remain sealed until the actual ceremony.

The 75th Emmy nominations are led by the triumvirate of "Succession" (27 total nominations), "The Last Of Us" (26), and "Ted Lasso" (21). Shows such as "The Bear," "Better Call Saul," "Yellowjackets," "Barry," and more are also expected to have major showings when it's all said and done. Presuming the strikes are dealt with by then, the Emmys will air on January 15, 2024.