The72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards honored the best in artistic and technical achievement inAmericanprime time television programming from June 1, 2019, until May 31, 2020, as chosen by theAcademy of Television Arts & Sciences.^[2][3] The awards were presented across five ceremonies; the first four were held on September 14 through 17, 2020, and werestreamed online, while the fifth was held on September 19 and broadcast onFXX. They were presented in avirtual ceremony due to theCOVID-19 pandemic;Nicole Byer hosted the event. A total of 106Creative Arts Emmys were presented across 100 categories. The ceremonies preceded the72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, held on September 20.

The Mandalorian andWatchmen led all programs with seven wins each, followed bySaturday Night Live with six andRuPaul's Drag Race with five.Watchmen was also the most-nominated program with 15 nominations;The Mandalorian followed with 14, whileThe Marvelous Mrs. Maisel andSaturday Night Live each received 12. Overall program awards went to 22 shows, includingThe Apollo,Bad Education,The Cave,Cheer,Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones,Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance,The Last Dance,Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath,Live in Front of a Studio Audience,Queer Eye,Rick and Morty,Saturday Night Live, andWe Are the Dream, among others.Netflix led all networks with 124 nominations; it also tied withHBO for the most wins, as each received 19 awards.

Winners are listed first, highlighted inboldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡).^[4][3][a] Sections are based upon the categories listed in the 2019–2020 Emmy rules and procedures.^[2] Area awards and juried awards are denoted next to the category names as applicable.^[b] For simplicity, producers who received nominations for program awards have been omitted.

For the purposes of the lists below, any wins in juried categories are assumed to have a prior nomination.

The following categories were presented at each ceremony:^[5][6]

The 72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards were originally scheduled for September 12 and 13, 2020, falling a week before the main ceremony and spreading the awards across two nights as had been done in previous years.^[12][13] However, due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, the ceremonies were moved in June to several unspecified nights in a virtual format,^[14] with a five-night plan being outlined in early August. The new format divided the ceremonies by genre as follows:^[15]

• Monday, September 14: Reality and Nonfiction
• Tuesday, September 15: Variety
• Wednesday, September 16: Scripted (Night One)
• Thursday, September 17: Scripted (Night Two)
• Saturday, September 19: "An eclectic mix of awards across all genres"

The first four ceremonies were streamed on Emmys.com via aYouTube livestream, with the fifth night airing onFXX.^[16] All of the virtual ceremonies were produced by Bob Bain Productions,^[15] andNicole Byer served as the host for the event from the Television Academy's headquarters inNorth Hollywood.^[17][18] While events during the ceremony were called live and winners were not known until being revealed to the director, all footage was pre-taped; each nominee was asked to submit an acceptance speech in advance, with only the winners' speeches being broadcast.^[19] While the ceremony mostly proceeded without a hitch, one notable error occurred whenJason Bateman was read as the winner for Guest Actor in a Drama Series, whileRon Cephas Jones – the actual winner – was listed on screen.^[20] Other glitches included the screen listing "Need Names" instead of recognizing the hairstyling team fromHollywood and an incorrect graphics card forMaya Rudolph's win for Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.^[16]

Changes that affected Creative Arts categories included:^[21][22][23]

• Outstanding Informational Series or Special was changed toOutstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special.
• Awards for interactive programs were realigned into the new categories of Outstanding Derivative Interactive Program, Outstanding Original Interactive Program, and Outstanding Interactive Extension of a Linear Program.
• Makeup and hairstyling awards were rearranged; the new categories were divided into period and contemporary awards, similar to costume categories.
• Category descriptions forOutstanding Structured Reality Program andOutstanding Unstructured Reality Program were revised.
• Outstanding Children's Program now limited voting to only children's programming and animation peer groups.
• Short-form programs could not exceed 17 minutes in length.

Four categories were also moved to the Creative Arts ceremony from the main ceremony:Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series,Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series,Outstanding Variety Sketch Series, andOutstanding Television Movie.^[13]

• 72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards at Emmys.com
• 72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards atIMDb
• Academy of Television Arts and Sciences website

• Primetime Emmy Award ceremonies
• 2020 in American television
• 2020 in Los Angeles
• 2020 awards in the United States
• 2020 television awards
• September 2020 in the United States

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