71St Primetime Emmy Awards

The ceremony was held on September 22, 2019, at the Microsoft Theater in Downtown Los Angeles, California, and was broadcast in the United States by Fox; it was preceded by the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards on September 14 and 15. The show did not have a host for the fourth time in its history, following the telecasts in 2003 (when the ceremony also aired on Fox), 1998 (on NBC), and 1975 (on CBS).

71st Primetime Emmy Awards
Promotional poster
Date	September 22, 2019 (Ceremony) September 14–15, 2019 (Creative Arts Emmys)
Location	Microsoft Theater Los Angeles, California
Presented by	Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
Highlights
Most awards	Major: Fleabag (4) All: Game of Thrones (12)
Most nominations	Major: Game of Thrones (14) All: Game of Thrones (32)
Comedy Series	Fleabag
Drama Series	Game of Thrones
Limited Series	Chernobyl
Television/radio coverage
Network	Fox
Runtime	3 hours
Viewership	6.9 million
Produced by	Don Mischer Done and Dusted
Directed by	Hamish Hamilton
← 70th · Primetime Emmy Awards · 72nd →

At the main ceremony, Fleabag led all programs with four wins and won the award for Outstanding Comedy Series. Game of Thrones won two awards, including its record-tying fourth win for Outstanding Drama Series. Chernobyl received the award for Outstanding Limited Series among its three wins. Other overall program awards went to Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, RuPaul's Drag Race, and Saturday Night Live, while The Act, Barry, Fosse/Verdon, Killing Eve, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Ozark, Pose, Succession, A Very English Scandal, and When They See Us each received at least one award. Including Creative Arts Emmys, Game of Thrones won 12 awards from 32 nominations – tying and breaking the single-season records, respectively – and helped HBO to 34 total wins, the most of any network. Watched by 6.9 million viewers in the United States, it was the lowest-rated Emmy broadcast in history, amounting to a 32% drop from the 2018 ceremony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The nominations were announced by D'Arcy Carden and Ken Jeong alongside Academy chairman and CEO Frank Scherma on July 16, 2019. Including its nominations at the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, Game of Thrones established a new record for the most Emmy nominations received in a single year by any comedy or drama series with 32 nominations, breaking the record of 26 nominations set by NYPD Blue in 1994. Game of Thrones also extended its own record for most total nominations for a scripted series, ending with 161 nods across its eight-season run, and it finished tied for the second-most nominations for Outstanding Drama Series, its eight nominations trailing only Law & Order's 11. HBO returned to its status as the most-nominated network after being surpassed the previous year by Netflix, earning a record-setting 137 nominations to beat its own record from 2015. Pop TV received its first ever Emmy nominations, earning four nominations with Schitt's Creek.

The main ceremony was held on September 22. Fleabag led all shows with four wins, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge winning three of those for producing, writing, and acting on the show. Fleabag's win for Outstanding Comedy Series gave Prime Video its second straight win in the category. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel also performed well for Prime Video, tying its record of eight wins from the previous year between the main and Creative Arts ceremonies. British television shows such as Fleabag and Chernobyl had strong showings; according to Deadline Hollywood, 13 of 27 awards went to shows produced or co-produced by British individuals.

Game of Thrones broke or tied several records with its wins. Its fourth win for Outstanding Drama Series tied it with Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, The West Wing, and Mad Men for most wins in the category. When including its Creative Arts wins, the show tied its own record for most Emmys won by a series in a single season with 12 awards, a feat it previously achieved in 2015 and 2016. It ended its run with 59 total Emmys, extending its record for most wins for a scripted series. Cast member Peter Dinklage established a new record for most wins for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series with his fourth win and eighth nomination for the series.

For his role on Pose, Billy Porter made history as the first openly gay man to win Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Jharrel Jerome became the first Afro-Latino to receive an Emmy for acting, winning Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for playing Korey Wise on When They See Us; he also became the youngest actor to win the category, at 21 years old. In the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series category, Jodie Comer became the youngest winner at 26 years old for her performance on Killing Eve.

Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡). For simplicity, producers who received nominations for program awards, as well as nominated writers for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series, have been omitted.

Programs

Acting

Lead performances

Supporting performances

Directing

Writing

Nominations and wins by program

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 the Creative Arts Emmy Awards.

Nominations and wins by network

The awards were presented by the following people:

Performers

 

The ceremony took place at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles with no host; comedian and actor Thomas Lennon served as an announcer for the ceremony, injecting with jokes and commentary as winners approached the stage to receive their Emmy. Televised by Fox, the ceremony began with a ruse where Homer Simpson appeared in an augmented-reality stage to host the event, before an animated piano dropped from the ceiling to land on The Simpsons' character. With the event now "host-less", Anthony Anderson rushed on stage in a skit where he insisted that "We're going to go without a host tonight!" and pushed the first presenter Bryan Cranston to the stage to welcome the audience and introduce a montage of video clips. The ceremony continued in such fashion with only Lennon and montages and clips filling the time between presenters.

Several winners made notable "statement speeches" while accepting their awards. After winning the award for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Alex Borstein said:

My grandmother was in line to be shot into a pit... she turned to a guard and she said "What happens if I step out of line?" and he said "I don't have the heart to shoot you but somebody will". And she stepped out of line, and for that I am here and for that my children are here, so step out of line ladies, step out of line.

The winner for outstanding supporting actress in a limited series or movie, Patricia Arquette (The Act), in her acceptance speech said "I'm grateful at 50 to be getting the best parts of my life" and paid tribute to her sister, Alexis Arquette, who had died in 2016. Michelle Williams, after winning the award for outstanding lead actress in a limited series or movie for Fosse/Verdon, made references to the gender and racial wage gaps in the film industry, as well as the Time's Up movement:

The next time a woman, and especially a woman of color—because she stands to make 52 cents on the dollar compared to her white, male counterpart—tells you what she needs to do her job, listen to her, believe her, because one day she might stand in front of you and say thank you for allowing her to succeed because of her workplace environment and not in spite of it.

In the In Memoriam presentation, a photograph of conductor Leonard Slatkin, who is alive and working in Ireland, was mistakenly used and captioned as André Previn, who died in February 2019.

Category and rule changes

On April 9, 2019, it was announced that American Horror Story: Apocalypse, the eighth season of the horror anthology series American Horror Story, and the second season of The Sinner would be ineligible for the Limited Series categories unlike their previous seasons, and instead be moved to Drama due to "continuing story threads, characters and actors reprising those same character roles from previous seasons", therefore making the series less fit for an anthology format. For similar reasons, the second season of American Vandal was moved from Limited Series to Comedy. None of the shows were nominated.

Critical reviews and viewership

The telecast was watched by 6.9 million viewers in the United States, making it the lowest-rated Emmy broadcast in history, amounting to a 32% drop from the 2018 ceremony.

Halsey sang "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper and Rob Hyman. The following people were included in the In Memoriam presentation: