Emmys to go host-less this year

The Emmys are taking a cue from this year’s Oscars: The 2019 ceremony, set to air on Fox next month, will go without a host.

“The Emmys will not have a host this year,” Fox entertainment CEO Charlie Collier announced to reporters at the Television Critics Association summer press tour on Wednesday. “It’s our job to assess how to elevate the program in the year we’re lucky enough to broadcast it. And what’s interesting about this year, to me, is how many amazing shows we’re saying goodbye to. You’ve got obviously Game of Thrones… and Veep and Big Bang Theory,” he noted.

“If you have a host and an opening number, that’s 15, 20 minutes you can’t use to salute the shows,” he added. “I look at the honor that is broadcasting the Emmys — we’re excited to do it — and our production team… really have had to balance those tradeoffs. We will go host-less this year. I think it will give us more time to honor those shows.” Collier also revealed that a number of hosting candidates were discussed on an “internal” basis, but no formal offers were made.

Last year’s Emmys, which aired on NBC, were hosted by SNL‘s Weekend Update hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che. (The Emmy ceremony rotates between the four broadcast networks each year.) Those Emmys, which atypically aired on a Monday night, dipped 10 percent in audience, delivering 10.2 million total viewers. But as this February’s Academy Awards telecast suggested, subtracting a host may add to viewer interest, as film’s biggest night rose 11 percent year over year — its first audience increase in half a decade, flirting with 30 million total viewers.

We’ll see how the host-less experiment goes when the 2019 Emmy Awards air live on Sunday, Sept. 22 at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT on Fox.