They’ve done it again! Premium TV creators dominated the 68th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, taking home an impressive 73 Emmys, including both Creative Arts and Telecast Emmys. HBO and FX Networks were the big winners with 22 and 18 Emmys, respectively.
All told, pay TV creators took 61 percent of all Emmys and 60 percent of Primetime Telecast Emmys.
Notable wins went to HBO’s Game of Thrones, which took home its 38th Emmy, officially making it the winningest television show in history unseating NBC’s Frasier. HBO’s Veep principal Julia Louis-Dreyfus won again for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series making it her fifth in a row. And newcomer Rami Malek took home an Emmy for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal of Elliot Alderson on USA’s Mr. Robot.
Malek’s win was particularly important as this was the first Emmy Award for Best Leading Actor to be given to a minority in 18 years. The last one was given to Andre Braugher for Homicide: Life on the Streets in 1998. This is fitting as just yesterday the cable industry entered its annual Diversity Week events supporting multiculturalism both on screen and behind the scenes.
Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon had an impressive showing as well. Netflix took home nine Emmys, including three for telecast and Amazon took a total of six, two for telecast.
Congratulations to all of the Emmy Award winners on Sunday night and an especially big kudos to those on premium TV like HBO, FX, and USA. It continues to be an amazing platform for creators to tell the best stories on earth.