Daytime Emmys Postponed Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will postpone the 47th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, which had been scheduled for June.

“Given our concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, we have decided that we will not be staging the 47th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in Pasadena this coming June,” NATAS chairman Terry O’Reilly said in a statement. “As there are so many unknowns right now with the flow of information changing on a daily, almost hourly, basis, it would simply be irresponsible to move forward with our annual celebration of excellence in daytime television at this time.”

This decision comes just days after the org decided to postpone both its annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards (at the NAB Convention in Las Vegas) and its Sports Emmy Awards (at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City) due to coronavirus concerns.

Given recent reports that the pandemic is more widespread and will still be a concern for several months, NATAS president and CEP Adam Sharp told Variety that “it did not seem responsible to commit to a three-night, 1,000-person-per-night event in June.”

Said Sharp in a statement: “These were extremely difficult decisions to make, but at the end of the day the health and safety of our event attendees and staff must remain our paramount concern. We are closely monitoring public heath authorities’ guidance, seeking feedback from our awards communities, and evaluating the flexibility of our venue and production partners as we plan for the future in this unprecedented context.”

Daytime Emmy Awards executive director Brent Stanton said judging will continue for the awards, which will be rescheduled for a later late. “We look forward to announcing our incredibly talented nominees later this spring,” he said. “We are working on some interesting alternative ideas for how to best recognize the honorees later this year and will share more details in the weeks ahead.”

The 47th Daytime Emmy Awards will take place June 12-14 at the Pasadena Convention Center, adding an extra day to its usual two-day presentation — similar to how the L.A.-based Television Academy expanded its Creative Arts Emmys in recent years. The decision to expand to three nights for the first time this year was meant to give more winners their due.

This year’s Daytime Emmys was set to be telecast on a streaming app launched by NATAS. According to Sharp, this year’s Daytime Emmys, which closed submissions at the end of January, received more than 2,700 total entries — more than a 10% uptick from last year. More than a quarter of all categories will be expanding to two rounds of judging to accommodate this increase.