Primetime Emmys will no longer honor children's programming

Variety

Starting next year, the Primetime Emmys will get out of honoring children's programming, leaving it up to the Daytime Emmys to honor all children's programming, no matter what time those shows aired. The decision comes as the West Coast-based Primetime Emmys and the East Coast-based Daytime Emmys, which jointly own the Emmys, are trying to figure out how to award programs in the streaming era, when there's no specific airtime. This year, the Primetime Emmys honored two shows for its lone kids' category, Outstanding Children's Program: The canceled Netflix series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and HBO’s We Are the Dream: The Kids of the Oakland MLK Oratorical Fest. The Daytime Emmys, meanwhile, offer a number of awards in children's programming. “If you’re a children’s program that debuts on Netflix, how can you tell whether that was historically going to go into nighttime or the daytime?” asks Television Academy president and chief operating officer Maury McIntyre. “It’s been causing a little bit of confusion.” McIntyre adds that it makes sense that only the Daytime Emmys handles children's programming. "It clears up a lot of stuff," he says.