TOPLINE
Jimmy Kimmel will host the 2020 Emmy Awards on September 20, ABC announced Tuesday, though many details of how the broadcast will be staged amid the coronavirus pandemic have yet to be decided.
Jimmy Kimmel attends an evening with Jimmy Kimmel at Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on August 07, 2019 in … [+]
Phillip Faraone/Getty Images
KEY FACTS
“I don’t know where we will do this or how we will do this or even why we are doing this, but we are doing it and I am hosting it,” said Kimmel in a statement.
Kimmel also hosted the 2016 and 2012 Emmy Awards.
There have only been three female solo hosts in the award show’s 72-year history: Angela Lansbury in 1993, Ellen DeGeneres in 2005 and 2001, and Jane Lynch in 2011.
There has yet to be a Black female solo host, though Oprah hosted alongside Michael J. Fox and Paul Reiser in 1996.
Michael Che, who hosted in 2018, was the first Black host since Bryant Gumbel in 1997.
Key Background
The 2019 Emmy Awards, which was hostless and widely panned, had the smallest audience in the show’s history, 6.9 million. (2018, with hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost, drew 10 million viewers, the previous all-time low.)
Tangent
On Monday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences pushed back the next Oscar awards from February 28 to April 25 due to Covid-19, which is the third time the ceremony has been rescheduled in the show’s 91-year history.
Further Reading
The 71st Primetime Emmy Awards: TV Review (Hollywood Reporter)
The Emmy(R) Awards Return to ABC, Sunday, Sept. 20 (Futon Critic)
Emmy Viewership Falls Under 7 Million For First Time To All-Time Low – Update (Deadline)
Emmy Awards Crash To New Low With 10.2M Viewers & Slipping Demo (Deadline)