59th Primetime Emmy Awards
Promotional poster
Date	September 16, 2007 (Ceremony) September 8, 2007 (Creative Arts Awards)
Location	Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles,California
Presented by	Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
Hosted by	Ryan Seacrest
Highlights
Most awards	Major: Broken Trail Prime Suspect: The Final Act The Sopranos Tony Bennett: An American Classic (3) All:Tony Bennett: An American Classic (7)
Most nominations	The Sopranos (10)
Outstanding Comedy Series	30 Rock
Outstanding Drama Series	The Sopranos
Outstanding Miniseries	Broken Trail
Outstanding Reality-Competition Program	The Amazing Race
Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series	The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Website	http://www.emmys.com/
Television/radio coverage
Network	Fox
Produced by	Ken Ehrlich
Directed by	Bruce Gowers
← 58th · Primetime Emmy Awards · 60th →

The59th Primetime Emmy Awards were held on Sunday, September 16, 2007, honoring the best inU.S.prime time television programming at theShrine Auditorium inLos Angeles,California. The ceremony was televised live onFox at 8:00 p.m.EDT for the first time inhigh definition (ontape delay three hours later on theWest Coast of the United States at 8:00 p.m.). It was also the most recent Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony to be held at the Shrine Auditorium, as it was then relocated to theNokia Theatre from thefollowing year (PDT/3:00UTC). The ceremony was hosted byRyan Seacrest.^[1] 28 competitive awards were presented.

The ceremonies were supposed to be produced byNigel Lythgoe andKen Warwick, executive producers ofAmerican Idol, but because of their heavy work load withIdol,Ken Ehrlich, last year's producer, resumed the producer's role for the fourth time.^[2] Ratings plunged further down to a near an all-time low as an estimate 12.87 million, 19% lower than the past year,^[3] making it the second smallest television audience in Emmy history, behind the1990 telecast.

The nominations were announced on July 19 at 5:40 a.m.PDT (12:40 UTC) byJon Cryer andKyra Sedgwick.^[4]

Meanwhile, theCreative Arts Emmy Awardsceremony, hosted by comedian-actorCarlos Mencia, were presented eight days earlier on September 9.^[5]

Freshman series30 Rock defeated defending championThe Office to claimOutstanding Comedy Series; this was the only major award for30 Rock.

Going into its final ceremony,The Sopranos needed just three major awards to tie the drama series record of 18 major wins set byHill Street Blues. It was nominated in ten major categories coming in and ended the night with three wins, including its second win forOutstanding Drama Series. This tied the record and gave both shows identical résumés—18 major wins and 74 major nominations. This win forThe Sopranos was also the first time any show's sixth season had won for the Outstanding Drama award, later achieved byGame of Thrones as well, anotherHBO drama.

AMC, a smaller cable network, won big withBroken Trail winning three Emmys. It wonOutstanding Miniseries and the network's first Acting wins, for the series' stars,Thomas Haden Church andRobert Duvall.

Winners are listed first and highlighted inbold:^[6]

Notes

The awards were presented by the following:

Al Gore'sCurrent TV was presented with the Interactive TV Emmy byMasi Oka ofHeroes with the help ofMySpace's presidentTom Anderson. This was the first year the Emmy was presented during the Primetime awards ceremony.^[7]

The stage was designed with seating surrounding the platform creating atheatre in the round, with acatwalk-style walkway for winners and presenters to exit the stage. A trapdoor was placed in the center of the main stage; some TV critics viewed this as a reference to Fox'sAmerican Idol.^[8] During his acceptance speech,James Spader made a comment about the seating design, saying "I've been to thousands and thousands of concerts in my life and I can tell you these are the worst seats I've ever had".^[9]

For the opening,Brian andStewie Griffin, characters fromFox'sanimated seriesFamily Guy (both voiced bySeth MacFarlane), sang the song "You Can Find It on TV". The song, a rewrite of "The FCC Song" from the show's Emmy-nominated episode "PTV", recapped memorable moments of the past television season while noting the variety of programming that will come to the future.

Another segment occurred during the presentation of the Outstanding Reality-Competition Program award. There was a competition between singerKanye West (who attended the ceremony in retaliation for his loss atMTV'sVideo Music Awards earlier that month) andThe Office actorRainn Wilson similar toDon't Forget the Lyrics! (which, like the 2007 Emmys, airs on Fox) with hostWayne Brady presiding. West sang the last line of the chorus in the song "Stronger" as "That how long I've been on you" which was supposed to be "That how long I've been on ya", losing to Wilson. West jokingly retorted "I never win", poking fun at his losses at award ceremonies and presented the award alongside Wilson.^[10]

Tony Bennett andChristina Aguilera sang "Steppin' Out With My Baby" from Bennett's award-winning special.

Jon Stewart andStephen Colbert presented the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. The award went toRicky Gervais forExtras, but after reading his name, Jon Stewart was informed that Gervais was not at the ceremony. Stewart immediately announced, "Ricky Gervais couldn't be here tonight, so instead we're going to give this to our friendSteve Carell" (who had been nominated for his role onThe Office). Carell ran onto the stage and hugged Stewart and Colbert as they all screamed in mock celebration, then ran off together with the award.^[11] As a joke, in 2008, at the60th Primetime Emmy Awards, Ricky Gervais showed a video of the moment, commenting, "Look at [Carell's] stupid face," accusing Carell of "stealing" his award, and demanding it back. He approached Carell, who was sitting straight-faced in the front row, and repeated, "Give me my Emmy," over and over, even going so far as totickle Carell, until Carell produced the statue from under his seat.^[12]

During the Fox telecast, some presenters and award winners were censored while making statements. WhenRay Romano delivered a comicmonologue about the change of television in the years since he lefthis own show, he mentioned that "for one, from what I hear,Frasier is screwing my wife?". On Fox, all that was heard was "for one, from what I hear, Frasier is" before Fox cut the audio and replaced the feed with pre-recorded material of an LED display ball with text scrolling around it. When viewers saw the ball through a high camera angle, it is revealed that the ball covered the entire stage. This lasted approximately 10 seconds before Fox returned to Romano. The reason for the censorship of this comment has been debated between vulgar language or revealing an important plot line to the show.^{[citation needed]}

When Katherine Heigl accepted her award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, she accidentally used profanity in her speech, causing Fox to cut the audio and once again replaced its feed with the pre-recorded shot of the display ball, only to return a moment later.^{[citation needed]}

The biggest censorship controversy was when actress Sally Field accepted her Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. After giving an acceptance speech which included anti-war statements, partially as a tribute to herBrothers & Sisters characterNora Walker, the audience applauded before she was finished and Field, finding herself lost for words, couldn't remember what she was going to say. When she regained her words, she concluded her speech with "If mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamn wars in the first place." Fox had cut to the display ball as she began to say "goddamn". This remark, and Fox's censorship of the remark, caused controversy in the days following the ceremony, leading critics to wonder if Fox had censored "Goddamn" or "Goddamn wars".^{[citation needed]} Field's remarks caused Fox to implement afour-second delay for the remainder of the telecast. All of these comments were left uncensored onCTV inCanada, and other international simulcasts.^{[citation needed]}

Also, at the Creative Arts Awards ceremony eight days earlier,Kathy Griffin, who won forKathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List caused controversy in her acceptance speech after she denounced celebrities who thankJesus for their awards. She later concluded her speech with anoff-color joke that included "Suck it, Jesus! This award is my God now!" TheCatholic League condemned her comments and successfully convincedE! to censor her speech during the telecast the following Saturday.

• Primetime Emmy Awards
• Emmy Awards coverage on DigitalHit.com
• Emmys.com list of 2007 Nominees & Winners
• 59th Primetime Emmy Awards atIMDb
• "You Can Find It on TV" opening number with partial lyrics

• Primetime Emmy Award ceremonies
• 2007 television awards
• 2007 in Los Angeles
• September 2007 in the United States

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