emmy awards

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 16 ― Fox, which attracts television's biggest audience each year with its juggernaut "American Idol," used the opening of the 59th Primetime Emmys to skewer its competitors, including NBC for its recent struggles to keep its audience. But NBC had the last laugh on Sunday, taking home seven awards, including the Emmy for best comedy series for the inaugural season of "30 Rock."

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2007 Emmy Awards
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On the Red Carpet
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The TV Watch: A Friendly Stage With More Décolletage Than Politics (September 17, 2007)
List of Winners (September 17, 2007)
Emmys.org

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David Chase, left, with cast members of "The Sopranos," which won the Emmy for drama series. The show had been nominated for 15 awards.

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Producer David Chase holds the award as producers and cast members accept the award for outstanding drama series for "The Sopranos" at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards Sunday, Sept. 16, 2007, in Los Angeles.

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Jaime Pressly accepts the award for the best supporting actress in a comedy for "My Name Is Earl."

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Writers accept the award for outstanding writing for a miniseries, movie or a dramatic special for his work on "Broken Trail" at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards. Robert Duvall, center, the star of the series, won best actor for his role.

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Jeremy Piven took his second consecutive award for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series for his role as Ari Gold on "Entourage."
"The Sopranos" won the Emmy for best drama series in its final season, also taking awards for best writing and best directing. But what was expected to be a sweep of the major acting awards by the cast of that long-running HBO series never materialized, as it lost out to other shows in four acting categories.

Overall, HBO won six awards, including best actor in a comedy series for Ricky Gervais in "Extras," Jeremy Piven's second consecutive Emmy for best supporting actor in a comedy series for his performance as the bombastic Ari Gold on "Entourage," and the award for television movie for "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee."

ABC also took home six awards, including three of the top acting awards, two of which went to series in their first year. Sally Field won best actress in a drama series for "Brothers & Sisters," a first-year show; America Ferrera won best actress in a comedy series for "Ugly Betty," also in its first year; and James Spader won his third Emmy for best actor in a drama for his role as Alan Shore. Two of the wins, including Sunday's, came for the show "Boston Legal"; previously, Mr. Spader won the award for playing the same character on "The Practice." "Ugly Betty" also won a directing award.

On NBC, "The Office" and "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" won for writing. Jaime Pressly won best supporting actress in a comedy for "My Name is Earl." And the NBC special "Tony Bennett: An American Classic" took three awards, including a performance Emmy for Mr. Bennett.

Fox won none of the major awards. "American Idol," the most-watched show on television, lost the award for best reality/competition series yet again to CBS's "Amazing Race," which has won the award each year it has been given.

On a night typically associated with feel-good humor, there was an undercurrent of tension. With the specter of a debilitating strike hanging over Hollywood, actors and other performers used the awards ceremony to support television writers and to attack network executives for taking screen time away from the people who produce the work.

Lewis Black, the comedian, skewered network producers for their now-common practices of placing text on-screen to promote coming shows and for squeezing credits off the screen at the end of a show.

"We don't care about the next show; we're watching this show," Mr. Black intoned in his usual screech. He also lambasted the networks for the practice of moving production credits to one side of the screen and running them so fast that even a speed-reader would have difficulty keeping up with them.

"Don't clutter up the screen so we can't see who worked on the show we just watched," Mr. Black said. "They deserve to see their names."

To applause from the audience, he asked network executives, "What is it you do, except come up with bad ideas?"

As if in support of one another in the coming contract struggle, each of the early acting winners, including Mr. Piven, Ms. Pressly and Terry O'Quinn (who won for supporting actor in a drama series for "Lost") thanked the writers who have turned their often complex and frequently unlovable characters into familiar, well-liked personas.

And while most of the celebratory acceptance speeches on the broadcast were uninspiring, remarks by Sally Field sent the Fox network's censors to the mute button ― not for her antiwar statements but for a vulgarity made when she remarked that her character on "Brothers & Sisters" was a mother with a son headed for combat in Iraq. If mothers ruled the world, she said in essence, there would be no wars.

In place of a monologue, Ryan Seacrest, the show's host, tried only a few jokes before bounding into the audience to play Name That Gown with Eva Longoria of "Desperate Housewives," and to introduce the casts of several shows with multiple nominations, which Fox had seated together in its unusual theater-in-the-round format.

In the award show's opening, Fox quickly did away with the kindness that one network sometimes shows to another: It used its cartoon character Stewie from "Family Guy" and his dog, Brian, to skewer competing series on other networks. NBC's "Scrubs" and its star, Zach Braff, "reminds us a sitcom doesn't have to make you laugh," the duo sang. ABC, they said, is brewing up more "primetime swill" like its new series "Cavemen." The song also made reference to NBC's ratings declines and invoked the unsavory reputation of Charlie Sheen, a CBS star.

One of the big questions hovering over the Shrine Auditorium here early Sunday evening was the extent to which the awards ceremony would become a celebratory send-off for "The Sopranos," the enduring HBO series that ended this year with a season-long farewell and, famously in its final episode, a shockingly abrupt conclusion.

"The Sopranos" received 15 Primetime Emmy nominations, including nods for best dramatic series and for performances by James Gandolfini, Edie Falco and three other principal cast members.

HBO already was a big winner before Sunday's broadcast, having garnered 15 Emmys during the Creative Arts Emmy Awards last week. NBC finished second, with its programs winning 12 Creative Arts Awards. The network's winners included Elaine Stritch for guest actress in a comedy series for her role as Colleen Donaghy, the mother of Alec Baldwin's Jack Donaghy, on "30 Rock."

At this time last year "30 Rock" was the forgotten twin to the highly promoted NBC series "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." That show barely made it though the season, while "30 Rock" turned into a critical hit and was competing on Sunday for best comedy series. "Studio 60" did win one acting award, for John Goodman, who won for guest actor in a drama series for his role as Judge Robert Bebe.

Among the multiple winners, "Broken Trail," a cowboy saga on the AMC cable channel, won for best mini-series and took two additional awards for acting. Robert Duvall won for lead actor in a mini-series or movie for "Broken Trail" and Thomas Haden Church won for supporting actor for that mini-series.

"Monk," which has won Tony Shalhoub several Emmys for best actor in a comedy series, received another for guest actor, awarded to Stanley Tucci. Leslie Caron won for guest actress in a drama series for "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."

The Primetime Emmys were being presented in an unusual format, with Fox transforming the staid Shrine Auditorium into a theater-in-the-round. The format was intended to play to the strengths of Mr. Seacrest, who is also host of television's biggest hit, "American Idol," which not coincidentally is also broadcast by Fox.

Neither a comedian, an actor nor a singer, Mr. Seacrest differs from many of the previous Primetime Emmy hosts. But he is known for keeping a weekly live television show running on time, a feat that can do more to win the enthusiasm of the sometimes jaded Hollywood audience than a monologue of predictable jokes.

Mr. Seacrest said he was looking forward to being close to the stage in case "American Idol" finally won an Emmy for best reality-competition show.

"American Idol" has not gone totally without recognition, however. At the Creative Arts ceremony, it received the 2007 Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which organizes the Emmys, for its "Idol Gives Back" charity special. The broadcast raised $75 million to assist children and young people living in extreme poverty in the United States and in Africa.

Heard at the 59th annual Primetime Emmy Awards:

"In essence, this is a story about a gangster. And gangsters are out there taking their kids to college, and taking their kids to school, and putting food on their table. And, hell, let's face it, if the world and this nation was run by gangsters ― maybe it is." ― David Chase, creator of "The Sopranos," accepting the Emmy for drama series.

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"I feel like I just stole a pile of money from the mob. And they are all sitting right over there." ― "Boston Legal" star James Spader, looking in the direction of "The Sopranos" cast after winning lead actor in a drama series.

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"My own mother told me I didn't have a shot in hell of winning tonight so I don't really have anything prepared. But she's a really big supporter. She does love me." ― "Grey's Anatomy" actress and Emmy winner Katherine Heigl.

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"Last year, I impaled myself kissing this up to my father, and I'm gonna do it again, because I love him and I miss him and I do it for him." ― Jeremy Piven of "Entourage," who won consecutive Emmys.

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"You know, sometimes when we're rolling around the jungle and the mud, and we're hitting each other, and stabbing each other, and shooting each other and pouring on the blood and turning on the sprinklers, I wonder what it would be like to bake up a sheet of cookies on Wisteria Lane. And get one of their checks." ― Emmy winner Terry O'Quinn of "Lost," referring to fellow ABC show "Desperate Housewives."

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"There are over 6,000 people here tonight. All of them talented, all of them looking incredible, all of them passed on hosting this year." ― Emmy host Ryan Seacrest.

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"I never knew an actor in my lifetime or anybody's lifetime who didn't want to do a Western. We all want to do Westerns and believe me it belongs to us in this country, uniquely to us. ... The Western is here to stay." ― "Broken Trail" actor and Emmy winner Robert Duvall.

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"This is probably going to be my daughter's favorite toy when we get home, next to SpongeBob. Product placement." ― Thomas Haden Church, holding the Emmy he won for supporting actor in "Broken Trail."

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"You Americans are wonderfully generous people. You are a lot of other things as well. Some good, some bad." ― Helen Mirren, accepting her Emmy for "Prime Suspect: The Final Act."


"I am going to prove tonight that for once and for all that I'm funnier than Tony Bennett. Done. This will be proof that it's over." _ Jon Stewart, nominated along with Bennett for individual performance in a variety or music program, on the red carpet. Bennett won the Emmy.

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Emmy Award

Emmy Award
Awarded for Excellence in television
Presented by ATAS/NATAS
Country United States
First awarded 1949
"Emmy" redirects here. For the female given name, see Emmy (name).
The Emmy Award is an American television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and are considered the TV equivalent of the Oscars.

Three related but separate organizations present Emmy Awards:

the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences honors national prime time entertainment excluding sports;
the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences recognizes daytime, sports, news and documentary programming, and;
the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences honors programming originating outside the United States.
The best-known of the awards are the Primetime Emmys, and the Daytime Emmy Awards, with both having categories classified as Creative Arts Emmys.
[edit] History
The first Emmy Awards were presented on January 25, 1949 at the Hollywood Athletic Club. The name "Emmy" was a feminization of "immy", a nickname used for the image orthicon tubes that were common in early television cameras. Shirley Dinsdale has the distinction of receiving the very first Emmy in the first awards ceremony. The Emmy Awards trophies are currently made by a private company with a manufacturing site at the maximum security El Dorado Correctional Facility, in El Dorado, Kansas.

The statuette of a winged woman holding an atom has since become the symbol of the TV Academies' goal of supporting and uplifting the art and science of television: The wings represent the muse of art; the atom the electron of science. It was created by television engineer Louis McManus, using his wife as a model.


[edit] Primetime Emmys
For more details on this topic, see Primetime Emmy Award.
The Primetime Emmys are presented in recognition of excellence in American primetime television programming. Ceremonies generally air in mid-September, on the Sunday before the official start of the fall television season, and are currently seen in rotation among the ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX networks.


[edit] Daytime Emmys
For more details on this topic, see Daytime Emmy Award.
The Daytime Emmy Awards are presented in recognition of excellence in American daytime television programming. The first daytime-themed Emmy Awards were given out at the primetime ceremony in 1972, but the first separate awards show made just for daytime programming was not held until 1974.


[edit] Sports Emmys
For more details on this topic, see Sports Emmy Awards.
The Sports Emmys are presented for excellence in sports programming. The awards ceremony takes place every Spring, usually sometime in the last two weeks in April or the first week in May, and is held on a Monday night in New York City.


[edit] Technology and Engineering Emmys
For more details on this topic, see Technology & Engineering Emmy Award.
Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards are presented to individuals, companies, or to scientific or technical organizations in recognition for their significant developments and contributions to the technological and engineering aspects of television.


[edit] Regional Emmys
There are twenty chapters of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, located across the United States, that conduct regional awards to recognize excellence in all the regional television markets. Because the headquarters of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences are located in Los Angeles, the Academy also handles the Los Angeles area membership and regional awards. These awards are less glamorous than the Prime Time Emmys and are sometimes technical.


[edit] International Emmys
The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences hands out awards which honor the best of non-US television.

Identifying these recipients can take months, with judging taking place at various international TV festivals. The best two programs from a particular genre in four regions are selected to go to a semifinal round, from which the nominees are derived. Every nominee is screened at a festival in New York the day before the awards ceremony