NATAS EXEC ON DAYTIME EMMYS' FUTURE

In light of the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s Daytime Emmy ceremony was canceled, and the awards will instead be handed out in a virtual celebration to be held later this year.

Explains National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences President Adam Sharp, “I think the Daytime Emmys was the most difficult [of the various Emmys] to proceed within this environment of all our ceremonies in part because it is the biggest. Our plans for this year had been a three-night [celebration] at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. It would have had more than a thousand people packed into a room each of those three nights. And it became clear relatively early [in the pandemic] that it would not be appropriate to do that in early June as we had planned.”

Originally, NATAS explored simply postponing the awards, “But working with the venue, frankly, there were no dates available in the fall where we would be able to do that same event, so that’s why Daytime was the first one where we announced that it would be postponed, but also take some sort of different form. It started becoming more and more clear that the likelihood of even being allowed to have a thousand people in a room this year was waning. And then, talking to the community, it was clear that there would be a lag between the time that the government says, ‘You are allowed,’ and people actually doing it. I don’t think that anyone was sort of planning on rushing for the doors of the auditorium the moment the government said we could. We realized, ‘We can put that spotlight on our talent and recognize the creators of our community in ways other than a big party and an auditorium show.’ ”