72nd Primetime Emmy Awards
Promotional poster
Date	September 20, 2020 (Ceremony) September 14–17 & 19, 2020 (Creative Arts Emmys)
Location	Staples Center Los Angeles,California[a]
Presented by	Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
Hosted by	Jimmy Kimmel
Highlights
Most awards	Major:Schitt's Creek (7) All:Watchmen (11)
Most nominations	Major:Watchmen (11) All:Watchmen (26)
Comedy Series	Schitt's Creek
Drama Series	Succession
Limited Series	Watchmen
Television/radio coverage
Network	ABC
Runtime	3 hours, 6 minutes[1]
Viewership	6.36 million
Produced by	Done and Dusted Hudlin Entertainment Kimmelot
Directed by	Hamish Hamilton
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The72nd Primetime Emmy Awards honored the best in Americanprime time television programming from June 1, 2019, until May 31, 2020, as chosen by theAcademy of Television Arts & Sciences.^[2] The ceremony was originally to be held at theMicrosoft Theater inLos Angeles,California, but due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, it was instead hosted from theStaples Center, while winners gave speeches remotely from their homes or other locations. It aired live on September 20, 2020, following the72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards on September 14–17 and 19. During the ceremony,Emmy Awards were handed out in 23 categories. The ceremony was produced byDone and Dusted, directed byHamish Hamilton, and broadcast in the United States byABC.Jimmy Kimmel served as host for the third time.

At the main ceremony,Schitt's Creek won all seven comedy categories includingOutstanding Comedy Series, becoming the first comedy series to complete a sweep of those categories.Succession andWatchmen each won four awards, includingOutstanding Drama Series andOutstanding Limited Series, respectively. Other winning programs includeEuphoria,I Know This Much Is True,Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,The Morning Show,Mrs. America,Ozark,RuPaul's Drag Race, andUnorthodox. Including Creative Arts Emmys,Watchmen led all programs with 11 wins and 26 nominations, whileHBO took home 30 awards to lead all networks.

The nominations for the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards were announced on July 28, 2020, by hostLeslie Jones and presentersLaverne Cox,Josh Gad, andTatiana Maslany.^[3]Watchmen led all programs with 26 total nominations between the main ceremony and the72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, followed byThe Marvelous Mrs. Maisel with 20 andOzark andSuccession with 18 each.^[4]Netflix led all networks and platforms with 160 nominations, beating the record of 137 set byHBO the previous year.^[5]Disney+,Apple TV+, andQuibi all received their first Emmy nominations and wins this year.^[4][6]

The winners were announced on September 20.Schitt's Creek became the first series to sweep all seven comedy categories and the second to ever complete a sweep, followingAngels in America as a miniseries in2004. It also became the first Canadian program to win the overall comedy or drama series award and set a record for most Emmys for a Canadian series.^[7] Additionally, it became the first comedy series to win all four main acting categories in a single year and the first show overall to sweep the acting categories sinceAngels in America.^[8][9] Combined with its two Creative Arts Emmys, the show became the most awarded comedy in a single year with nine wins, breakingThe Marvelous Mrs. Maisel's record of eight from2018 and2019.^[8]

Dan Levy won four awards forSchitt's Creek to tieMoira Demos andAmy Sherman-Palladino for the most wins for an individual in one year,^[10][11] while he andEugene Levy became the first father-son duo to win Emmys in the same year.^[12] For her work onEuphoria,Zendaya became the youngest winner in the Lead Actress in a Drama Series category at 24 years old, breakingJodie Comer's record from the previous year.^[13][14] She also became the second black actress to win the category, followingViola Davis in2015.^[15]Regina King's win for her performance inWatchmen marked her fourth career Emmy, tying her withAlfre Woodard for the most wins by a black performer.^[16] Zendaya and King were also two of the seven black winners for acting in comedy, drama, or limited series, breaking the record of six.^[17]

Winners are listed first, highlighted inboldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡).^[18][19][b] For simplicity, producers who received nominations for program awards have been omitted.

The Governors Award was presented toTyler Perry and The Perry Foundation "in recognition of their unparalleled contributions to shaping the television medium" and for their "inclusion, engagement, employment and other philanthropic initiatives".^[21][22] The award was moved to the main telecast from its usual presentation at the Creative Arts Emmys.^[23]

For the purposes of the lists below, "major" constitutes the categories listed above (program, acting, directing, and writing), while "total" includes the categories presented at theCreative Arts Emmy Awards.

The awards were presented by the following people:^[27]

As part of a rotating deal among the "Big Four" networks signed in 2018,ABC held the rights to broadcast the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards.^[47] On January 8, 2020, during theTelevision Critics Association's annual winter tour, ABC announced that the ceremony would be broadcast on September 20 from theMicrosoft Theater inLos Angeles, while the Creative Arts ceremonies would be held on September 12 and 13.^[48] However, theCOVID-19 pandemic led to significant changes. TheAcademy of Television Arts & Sciences, also known as the Television Academy, announced on June 15 that the Creative Arts ceremonies would be presented virtually due to the pandemic. Additionally, the annual Governors Ball was cancelled for the first time in its history, with the Television Academy making a $1 million donation to theActors Fund's COVID-19 efforts in its place.^[49] The new Creative Arts dates were announced in August, with the ceremonies to be aired across five nights between September 14 and 19.^[50] On July 29, the main ceremony was moved to a remote format as well.^[51]

Jimmy Kimmel was announced as the ceremony's host on June 16. This year marked his third time as host, following2012 and2016. Kimmel also served as an executive producer for the event.^[52][53] In July, Guy Carrington,Reginald Hudlin, David Jammy, and Ian Stewart were added as executive producers, withDone and Dusted producing the ceremony.^[54]Hamish Hamilton served as director for the event.^[55]

While Kimmel presented the ceremony from theStaples Center, no in-person festivities (such as ared carpet oraudience) at the venue took place.^[56] Celebrity guests still made on-stage appearances, includingJennifer Aniston andAnthony Anderson.^[57] The broadcast used live feeds from each nominee, with television series being represented by one of their producers.^[56] A notable exception wasSchitt's Creek, whose cast and crew appeared together from a viewing party inToronto.^[58] To maintain a high-quality presentation, the use ofvideo-conferencing was avoided, with producers sending "professional" cameras to each nominee's location, as well as an operator, if they so chose. Hudlin stated that they wanted to maintain a live broadcast, while Stewart argued that "we're not trying to make theZoomies, we're trying to make the Emmys".^[56] Staples Center was chosen as the venue to ensure that appropriatesocial distancing could be maintained among crew members, and because it could support the infrastructure needed for the large number of remote feeds that would be used (estimated to be around 140).^[56]

A number ofcomedy gags acknowledged the pandemic and the format of the ceremony. Kimmel's opening monologue featured alaugh track andstock footage of audience reactions from past Emmy ceremonies. After culminating with a clip that paradoxically showed Kimmel himself as an audience member, he revealed the empty arena, and seats withcardboard cut-outs of nominees (except for the realJason Bateman; Kimmel told him that he could stay if he promised to laugh at his jokes, but he declined and left).^[59][60] Kimmel was also seen disinfecting the envelope forOutstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series withLysol spray; after Aniston commented that it was "a little extreme", Kimmel proceeded to throw it in a trash can and set it on fire instead.^[57][61] Some awards were delivered to winners via presenters in themedHazmat suits designed to look like formalwear.^[62]

Several rule changes were announced in December 2019. First, episodes that were scheduled to air after the eligibility period closed, known as hanging episodes, were eligible for awards if they were made available on a member-accessible platform, such as the Television Academy's streaming platform, before May 31, 2020. Otherwise, those episodes would be eligible at the following year's ceremony. For limited series, all episodes had to be made available before May 31, or the series as a whole would have to compete the following year. Other changes included the elimination of DVDscreeners to save money and waste, as well as a limit on actors playing the same character across multiple series – only one performance for that character could be submitted in a given year. Programs broadcast during prime time hours as an extension ofdaytime series were no longer eligible, and self-published programming had to be vetted to determine if it was "suitably competitive".^[63][64][65]

In March 2020, the deadline for hanging episodes was extended to June 30 due to production delays stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic; the nomination and voting periods were similarly delayed. All shows were still required to premiere before May 31 to be eligible for the 2020 ceremony.^[66] "For Your Consideration" events were initially moved from live settings to virtual events due to the pandemic,^[67] but were later suspended entirely.^[66]

On June 17, 2020, it was announced that the number of nominees in the Outstanding Comedy and Drama Series categories had been increased from seven to eight, regardless of the number of submissions. The number of nominees had last been increased in2015, from six to seven. The Television Academy cited a 15% increase in submissions as the reason for the change. In other categories, a sliding scale based on the number of submissions would be used to determine the number of nominees; paired performance categories, such as supporting actor and actress in a comedy, would have the same number of nominees. The changes led to the elimination of the "2% rule", where submissions within two percent of the fifth-place nominee would also receive a nomination.^[68][69][70]

On August 6, alongside the announcement of the Creative Arts ceremony dates, four categories were moved from the main ceremony to Creative Arts ceremonies:Directing for a Variety Series,Writing for a Variety Series,Variety Sketch Series, andTelevision Movie. This left 23 categories to be presented at the main ceremony. Additionally, the Governors Award was moved from its usual presentation at a Creative Arts ceremony to the main ceremony.^[50] The move drew criticism from theWriters Guild of America andDirectors Guild of America, which were contractually guaranteed four writing and four directing categories during the broadcast.^[71]

The broadcast received generally positive reviews from critics.^[72][73]Time's Judy Berman called the ceremony "one of the most enjoyable awards shows in recent memory" thanks not to one major decision but instead due to the many details that succeeded. She felt Kimmel's turn as host provided some energy and consistency, even as his performance was simply okay.^[74]Linda Holmes ofNPR also noted that the broadcast "wasn't just watchable; it was ... pretty good", with the remote setup providing a level of intimacy and unpredictability missing from other awards shows.^[75]IndieWire's Ben Travers called it "a memorable, entertaining, and technically immaculate awards show", praising the technical team and the decision to favor live speeches over recorded segments.^[76]

Mike Hale ofThe New York Times was more critical of the ceremony, remarking that the Emmys "continued [their] trend of feeling out of tune with the way most of us watch TV". He added that the remote appearances and pretaped portions evoked nostalgia for "the hothouse atmosphere and occasional breakdowns" of live ceremonies, with spontaneity replaced by "stage-managed banality".^[77]Hank Stuever, writing forThe Washington Post, found that the ceremony "more than met the challenge that the pandemic handed it" but failed to inspire any permanent ideas for changes to the awards show format.^[78] Robert Lloyd remarked in theLos Angeles Times that the show "felt solid enough to accommodate the occasional technical difficulty", adding that because almost everything was unprecedented, it was "minute for minute more interesting than these long nights of self-celebration usually are". He found that Kimmel was the right host for the event, providing "a walking dose of normality" to the proceedings.^[79]

The ceremony was watched by 6.36 million viewers in the United States, falling below the previous year's ceremony to become the least-watched Emmys telecast in history. It achieved a 1.3rating among adults ages 18–49, also a record low.^[80] The ceremony faced competition from both anNFL broadcast and, for the first time, aplayoff game for theNBA.^[1] Additionally, the ceremony lacked ared carpet show leading into the ceremony, which may have affected viewership.^[81]

Following the nomination announcement, the Television Academy was criticized for its lack oftransgender nominees. Several cast members and affiliates of theFX dramaPose, which is set in New York City's LGBTballroom scene, criticized the Television Academy for excluding itsmany transgender stars from the acting categories.^[82][83] There was similar criticism from affiliates of theHBO seriesEuphoria, for which transgender actressHunter Schafer did not receive a nomination despite critical acclaim.^[84] However, despite these snubs,Rain Valdez became the second transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy for acting, receiving a nomination forOutstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series.^[85]

Further criticism resulted from the lack ofLatino nominees. While there was a record number of black nominees, there was limited recognition for shows starring Latino casts and only one Latino or Latina nomination in any acting category (Alexis Bledel forOutstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series). TheCongressional Hispanic Caucus called the lack of nominations a "demoralizing disappointment for the U.S.'s largest minority group".^[86][87] When theLos Angeles Times reported the criticism using the terms "Black" and "Latino" separately, it was itself criticized for failing to recognizeAfro-Latinos.^[88]John Leguizamo boycotted the Emmys because of its lack of Latino nominees, remarking, "If you don't have Latin people, there's no reason for me to see it."^[89] Before the nominations were announced, Porter suggested that hisPose co-starMj Rodriguez, who is transgender and Afro-Latina, was not receiving recognition because the Television Academy's members "don't know how to adjudicate the performance" and so simply exclude it.^[90]

The Emmys also faced criticism from theAsian American community, leveled because Asian Americans only made up one percent of the nominees. The relative lack of nominations was attributed to both the small number of shows featuring Asian Americans and the perception among some voters that such shows are niche or foreign.^[91]Mindy Kaling, creator ofNever Have I Ever, criticized the Emmys for not nominating the series for any Emmy categories despite its success, suggesting that it was overlooked because "Sometimes a show like ours will always seem ethnic or niche to a certain group of people."^[92]

The annual In Memoriam segment featuredH.E.R. performing "Nothing Compares 2 U" on piano and electric guitar.^[93][94]

Before the In Memoriam montage, Kimmel paid tribute toUnited States Supreme Court JusticeRuth Bader Ginsburg, who died two days before the ceremony.^[95] A speech recorded by Boseman was played at the end of the montage.^[96]

• 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards at Emmys.com
• 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards atIMDb
• 2020 Emmy Awards episode submissions atGold Derby
• Academy of Television Arts & Sciences website
• 2020 Emmy Nominating Ballots

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