EMMY AWARDS - TWO EMMY GROUPS MAY FACE OFF AGAIN

Raising the possibility of a new set-to between the two organizations that hand out Emmy Awards, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), the group that hands out Emmys for daytime, news, documentaries, sports shows, and engineering announced today (Friday) that it plans to launch "a new Global Media Awards program focused on technology and content programming" with the Consumer Electronics Association to take place at the CES convention in Las Vegas in January. Conspicuously absent from the announcement was any mention of the word "Emmy." Last year an arbitration panel sided with the West Coast Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS), ruling that NATAS could not hand out Emmys created for broadband. As a result, NATAS was compelled to hand out what it called "special awards" in 13 broadband content categories during its "Tech Emmys" presentation at the CES last January. The Global Media Award will presumably require the creation of a substitute trophy.

13/06/2008