The 71st Primetime Emmy Awards honored the best in American prime time television programming from June 1, 2018, until May 31, 2019, as chosen by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The ceremony was held on September 22, 2019, at the Microsoft Theater in Downtown Los Angeles, California, and was broadcast in the United States by Fox; it was preceded by the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards on September 14 and 15.[3] The show did not have a host for the fourth time in its history, following the telecasts in 2003 (when the ceremony also aired on Fox), 1998 (on NBC), and 1975 (on CBS).[4]
The nominations were announced by D'Arcy Carden and Ken Jeong alongside Academy chairman and CEO Frank Scherma on July 16, 2019.[5] Including its nominations at the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, Game of Thrones established a new record for the most Emmy nominations received in a single year by any comedy or drama series with 32 nominations, breaking the record of 26 nominations set by NYPD Blue in 1994.[6][7]Game of Thrones also extended its own record for most total nominations for a scripted series, ending with 161 nods across its eight-season run,[8] and it finished tied for the second-most nominations for Outstanding Drama Series, its eight nominations trailing only Law & Order's 11.[9]HBO returned to its status as the most-nominated network after being surpassed the previous year by Netflix, earning a record-setting 137 nominations to beat its own record from 2015.[10]Pop TV received its first ever Emmy nominations, earning four nominations with Schitt's Creek.[11]
Game of Thrones broke or tied several records with its wins. Its fourth win for Outstanding Drama Series tied it with Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, The West Wing, and Mad Men for most wins in the category.[16] When including its Creative Arts wins, the show tied its own record for most Emmys won by a series in a single season with 12 awards, a feat it previously achieved in 2015 and 2016.[17][18] It ended its run with 59 total Emmys, extending its record for most wins for a scripted series.[19] Cast member Peter Dinklage established a new record for most wins for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series with his fourth win and eighth nomination for the series.[20][21]
Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡).[26][27][a] For simplicity, producers who received nominations for program awards, as well as nominated writers for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series, have been omitted.
For the purposes of the lists below, "major" constitutes the categories listed above (program, acting, directing, and writing), while "total" includes the categories presented at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
The ceremony took place at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles with no host; comedian and actor Thomas Lennon served as an announcer for the ceremony, injecting with jokes and commentary as winners approached the stage to receive their Emmy.[33] Televised by Fox, the ceremony began with a ruse where Homer Simpson appeared in an augmented-reality stage to host the event, before an animated piano dropped from the ceiling to land on The Simpsons' character. With the event now "host-less", Anthony Anderson rushed on stage in a skit where he insisted that "We're going to go without a host tonight!"[32] and pushed the first presenter Bryan Cranston to the stage to welcome the audience[34] and introduce a montage of video clips. The ceremony continued in such fashion with only Lennon and montages and clips filling the time between presenters.[32]
Several winners made notable "statement speeches" while accepting their awards. After winning the award for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Alex Borstein said:[34]
My grandmother was in line to be shot into a pit... she turned to a guard and she said "What happens if I step out of line?" and he said "I don't have the heart to shoot you but somebody will". And she stepped out of line, and for that I am here and for that my children are here, so step out of line ladies, step out of line.
The next time a woman, and especially a woman of color—because she stands to make 52 cents on the dollar compared to her white, male counterpart—tells you what she needs to do her job, listen to her, believe her, because one day she might stand in front of you and say thank you for allowing her to succeed because of her workplace environment and not in spite of it.
In the In Memoriam presentation, a photograph of conductor Leonard Slatkin, who is alive and working in Ireland, was mistakenly used and captioned as André Previn, who died in February 2019.[36][37][38]
Category and rule changes
On April 9, 2019, it was announced that American Horror Story: Apocalypse, the eighth season of the horror anthology seriesAmerican Horror Story, and the second season of The Sinner would be ineligible for the Limited Series categories unlike their previous seasons, and instead be moved to Drama due to "continuing story threads, characters and actors reprising those same character roles from previous seasons", therefore making the series less fit for an anthology format. For similar reasons, the second season of American Vandal was moved from Limited Series to Comedy. None of the shows were nominated.[39][40][41]
Critical reviews and viewership
The telecast was watched by 6.9 million viewers in the United States, making it the lowest-rated Emmy broadcast in history, amounting to a 32% drop from the 2018 ceremony.[2]
^The outlets listed for each program are the U.S. broadcasters or streaming services identified in the nominations, which for some international productions are different from the broadcaster(s) that originally commissioned the program.