Amazon has agreed to pay roughly $120 million to make the Emmy Awards available to watch at no extra cost, according to a report from Deadline. The deal will bring the awards ceremony to Prime Video starting in 2027. Deadline reported that Amazon is paying around $20 million to $25 million per year for the rights, which pushes the total value of the agreement past $120 million. The arrangement means viewers will be able to stream the Emmys without paying separately for the broadcast.
Cris Abrego, who chairs the Television Academy, said the organization's broadcast partners had done a strong job of guiding the Emmys over many years and turning the ceremony into a cultural institution. He said a dedicated home on Prime Video would let the Academy extend that legacy through global reach and a deeper commitment to the Academy and its mission across the year. Abrego's statement framed the move as a way to grow the ceremony's audience and its relationship with the industry.
The agreement reflects a broader push by streaming services to secure live, high-profile events for their platforms, with awards shows emerging as a favored target. Netflix has acquired the rights to the SAG awards, and the Oscars are set to move to YouTube in 2029. Those moves show major streaming and video platforms competing for appointment viewing that draws large audiences in real time.
Streaming services have also become dominant forces at the Emmys themselves. At this year's awards, Apple TV collected the most wins of any network, powered by Widow's Bay, which took home 14 awards in total. That result underscores how much the television landscape has shifted toward streaming platforms, both as distributors of the ceremony and as the studios behind the shows being honored.
For Amazon, the Emmy deal adds a marquee live event to Prime Video's offerings, following a pattern in which tech and streaming companies pair subscription video with major cultural moments. The reported price tag places the Emmys among the more expensive awards rights packages in recent years. The Television Academy, for its part, gains a single dedicated streaming partner and what it describes as broader global exposure for its annual ceremony.
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