Amazon announced on Tuesday that the Emmy Awards are moving to Prime Video, with the ceremony streaming free worldwide from 2027. The Emmys on Prime Video deal runs for six years and gives the show a permanent home for the first time in its history.
For more than seven decades, the Emmys rotated between the major US broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. Starting in 2027, a single streaming service will carry the ceremony every year instead. Neither side disclosed the financial terms of the agreement.
How the Emmys on Prime Video stream will work
Prime Video will show the ceremony live in more than 240 countries and territories. Viewers also won’t need a paid subscription. According to Amazon, people without an Amazon Prime membership can still watch the awards on the Prime Video platform at no cost.
That setup differs from the old rotation in one obvious way. Under the network model, the host broadcaster changed from year to year. Now the show will sit on the same platform for six consecutive ceremonies.
Ratings pressure on the broadcast model
The agreement arrives as the Emmys face a long-running audience problem. This year’s ceremony, the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards, aired on NBC and drew 6.87 million viewers. According to TechCrunch, that figure was “down nearly 10% from the year prior, after a couple of years of growth.”
Still, the 2026 numbers sit well above the show’s low point. The ceremony that aired in January 2024 drew just 4.3 million viewers, the smallest audience in its history. That edition moved from its usual September slot because of the 2023 Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes.
Meanwhile, more of the Emmys audience now watches TV through streaming services, and streaming originals regularly compete for the top prizes. As a result, putting the Emmys on Prime Video moves the ceremony onto the kind of service where those viewers already spend their time.
Awards shows follow viewers to streaming
The Emmys are the latest awards show to leave broadcast television. Last year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences signed a deal giving YouTube the rights to stream the Oscars starting in 2029. Netflix, for its part, has streamed the Screen Actors Guild Awards since 2024.
For Amazon, the Emmys join a growing slate of live events on Prime Video. The service already carries Thursday Night Football in the US, and it began streaming NBA games in the 2025-26 season. Live broadcasts like these draw large audiences at a fixed time, which on-demand series do not.
The first Emmys on Prime Video ceremony takes place in 2027. The agreement covers six annual broadcasts, which would keep the show on Amazon’s service through 2032.