A Brief History of Our Favorite Film & TV Awards Shows

If you’re a fan of television, movies, or music, then you probably wait in eager anticipation at the beginning of every year for the start of Awards Season. From the Grammy Awards to the Emmy Awards to the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, and all the awards shows big and small, from January to March it seems there’s an award show on TV just about every other weekend.

As awards makers ourselves, you’re probably not surprised by our own love and appreciation for Awards Season and the trophies that go with each of our favorites. This year, we thought we’d share with you a brief history of 3 of our favorite awards shows, specifically for outstanding achievements in the film and television industries and the trophies that go with them.

1. Academy Awards

According to ABC News, the Academy Awards were started to control filmmakers by Louis B Mayer, co-founder of MGM studios and creator of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The first Academy Awards event was at a private dinner, on May 16, 1929, and lasted just 15 minutes. The awards ceremony was first televised in 1953 and is now broadcast all over the globe.

The Academy Awards have evolved from being a manipulative strategy by a film executive into a popular event where the film industry gets to honor excellence in each other, and fans get to marvel at the glamour and glitz of the event they see as it unfolds live on their television screens. And yet, the awards have remained controversial since their beginnings. Some people have criticized the Academy Awards for being too biased or a mere popularity contest, and some artists who were nominated or who won, have boycotted the ceremony for those reasons or to highlight issues they felt strongly about.

Bonus Trivia

The famous Academy Awards trophy statuette has a colorful history of its own. But our favorites are the rumors surrounding how it was named. Actually, nobody really knows how the Academy Statue of Merit came to be called an “Oscar.” Some people say it was named by actress Bette Davis after her 1st husband whose name was Harmon Oscar Nelson. Another story is that it was named by Academy librarian, Margaret Herrick because the trophy reminded her of her Uncle Oscar. Regardless of which of these a person believes, the trophy has been “Oscar” since 1934, and the awards show itself is now referred to as “The Oscars.”

The 90th Academy Awards will air on ABC, Sunday, March 4, 2018, at 8:00 pm EST/5:00 pm PST.

2. Emmy Awards

Believe it or not, but the Emmy Awards, which is now run by 3 separate organizations: The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, was started as part of a publicity campaign and only honored local Los Angeles area television. That ceremony happened on January 25, 1949.

Sometime in the 1950’s the awards began to recognize shows broadcast all over the United States. (we know that’s vague, but even the official Emmys website doesn’t list a date) and has continued to grow into separate events for different areas within television broadcasting. The most popular and well known Emmy Awards ceremonies being the Primetime Emmy Awards and the Daytime Emmy Awards. Unlike our other 2 favorite film and television awards ceremonies that occur near the beginning of the year, the Primetime Emmy Awards typically air in September.

Bonus Trivia

We all know that these famous television broadcasting awards and trophy are called an Emmys. However, unlike the Oscars, the story of how they got their name is more straightforward. At first, the awards were going to be called “Ike” after the iconoscope tube inside televisions at the time. It was feared that people would confuse the awards with General and future President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose nickname was also Ike. Instead, television engineer and the 3rd Academy president came up with the name “Immy” after the French word for the image orthicon camera. Later the spelling was changed from Immy to Emmy to match the female trophy statuette.

The 70th Annual Emmy Awards will air on NBC in Sept 2018 at 8 pm EST/5:00 pm PST.

3. Golden Globe Awards

The Golden Globe Awards kick off the start of the awards show season and the 2018 show was broadcast on January 7. Unlike the Academy Awards and the Emmy Awards, these awards were founded by journalists and not film or television executives or artists. It all started back in 1943 when a group of journalists got together to found the Hollywood Foreign Correspondents Association which later became the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Over the years the Golden Globes have become extremely influential in the film industry. In fact, as one of the first awards to be given out every year, both the Golden Globe nominations and award are viewed by many as fairly accurate predictors for the films and filmmakers that will ultimately win Academy Awards that year. With proceeds earned from the Golden Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has donated untold millions of dollars to film-related charities and funded scholarship and other programs for future film and television professionals.

Bonus Trivia

Unlike the Oscar and the Emmy, the Golden Globe trophy doesn’t have a naming story and the award has been redesigned many times throughout its history. The most recent makeover happened in 2009 and gave it a stronger, more unique marble base as well as increasing the globe statue’s gold content and enhancing its overall quality.

The 2018 Golden Globes aired on NBC on Sunday, January 7 at 8:00 pm EST/5:00 pm PST

Conclusion

So there you have it, our favorite trophies and awards when it comes to the world of movies and television. We hope you love watching these awards shows as much as we do. And yes, there’s probably nothing surprising about the awards shows we picked. All 3 of them are well known. Truthfully, we’re most excited about the Academy Awards and can’t wait to find out who wins.

We want to know what you think. Do you agree with our choices? What do you think about industry awards? Let us know in the comments section below.

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