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| Founded | 1955; 70 years ago (1955) |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Products | Daytime Emmy Award Sports Emmy Award News & Documentary Emmy Award Technology & Engineering Emmy Award Children's & Family Emmy Awards |
| Website | theemmys |
TheNational Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), also known as theNational Television Academy until 2007, is an American professionalservice organization founded in 1955 for "the advancement of the arts and sciences of television and the promotion ofcreative leadership for artistic, educational and technical achievements within the television industry".[1] Headquartered inNew York City, NATAS membership is national and the organization has local chapters around the country. NATAS distributes several groups ofEmmy Awards, includingDaytime,Sports,News and Documentary, andChildren's and Family Emmys. NATAS is a sister organization to theAcademy of Television Arts and Sciences and theInternational Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the other two bodies that present Emmy Awards to other sectors of television programming.
NATAS was originally established when theLos Angeles-basedAcademy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) merged with a New York academy founded byEd Sullivan. The Los Angeles chapter then broke away from NATAS in 1977, splitting the distribution of the several groups ofEmmy Awards as part of their agreement. Among others, ATAS continues to present thePrimetime andLos Angeles Emmys; while NATAS is responsible for theDaytime,Sports,News and Documentary,Children's and Family, and the regional Emmys outside of Los Angeles.[2] Sister organizationInternational Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (IATAS), presenter of theInternational Emmys, was then founded in 1969 as the International Council of the NATAS.[3]
One of its past presidents,Don DeFore, was instrumental in arranging for theEmmy Awards to be broadcast on national TV for the first time on March 7, 1955. Other past presidents include Diana Muldaur, John Cannon, Peter Price,Frank Radice and Bob Mauro.
NATAS distributes several US national level groups of Emmy Awards, including:
19 Regional NATAS chapters organize award ceremonies of their own, awarding Emmy statues similar to those given out at the national ceremonies. They also administer their own regional scholarship and student productions award programs.[4]
Academy of Television Arts & Sciences gives out only the Los Angeles, CA Regional Chapter Awards.
NATAS also supervised thePrimetime Emmy Awards until a split between the East and West memberships in the 1970s led to theAcademy of Television Arts & Sciences leaving NATAS. ATAS supervises the Primetime and Los Angeles area Emmys, while NATAS is in charge of the other Emmy honors. In 2007, the organization spawned a peer organization dedicated to new media, called the National Academy of Media Arts & Sciences (NAMAS).[5]
NATAS published amagazine,Television Quarterly, which started in 1962.[6][7]
Palestinian journalistBisan Owda was nominated in July 2024 for the45th News and Documentary Emmy Awards for Outstanding Hard News Feature Story: Short Form[8] for "It's Bisan from Gaza and I'm Still Alive." Around 150 people fromCreative Community for Peace signed a call for the nomination to be rescinded. Adam Sharp, NATAS president and chief executive, responded by saying that experienced journalists had made the nomination decision and that the academy had not found any evidence that Owda was affiliated with thePFLP.[9][10]