Prime Video Takes Emmys in Six-Year Global Deal

The Primetime Emmy Awards are leaving broadcast television for the first time since 1949.

Amazon's Prime Video has struck a six-year deal with the Television Academy to take over the telecast, effective next year. The new pact begins with the ceremony in September 2027, Variety reported on 6 October 2026.

Prime Video is believed to be paying a licence fee of around $15 million a year for global rights. That compares with around $8 million to $10 million a year under the old arrangement, which covered domestic rights only.

The old arrangement was the wheel deal, meaning ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox took turns airing the Emmys. That rotation ran for 31 years. It now ends.

Under the new deal, viewers in the United States and in more than 240 countries and territories can watch the Emmys for free on Prime Video. Free in front of the paywall means no Prime subscription is needed to watch the show.

The deal also pulls together rights that were previously split apart. Television Academy chair Cris Abrego said the wheel deal, the cable deal for the craft awards and the international deals all ended and were bundled into the Prime Video agreement.

The craft awards are the artisans-focused Nights 1 and 2, formerly known as the Creative Arts Emmys. They were previously edited into a condensed special that aired a week after the ceremonies on FXX. Internationally, the Primetime Emmys were previously syndicated, meaning sold territory by territory, by the UK-based distributor Rainmaker Content, except in Canada and Australia.

Abrego also said the Academy's planned merger with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences is on track to happen as soon as mid-2027, before the next Emmys under the new deal.

For fans, this means one place to find the show. No channel-hopping year to year, and no subscription needed, but a streaming app instead of a broadcast channel for the first time in the programme's history.