TV Academies join hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’ at last with new partnership

The two long-bickering organizations behind the Emmy Awards — the New York-based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) and the Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) — on Wednesday officially buried the hatchet and announced what is termed a “groundbreaking” partnership with joint national membership for shared peer groups. The move will align particular groups of membership from both academies.

NATAS National Membership will officially launch in 2025, with pre-registration for charter members opening this month, and will be organized under a peer group model similar to that of the Television Academy. Seven national peer groups will be initially established and organized around the NATAS-administered Emmy competitions: Children’s Animation, Children’s Live Action, Daytime, Documentary, News, Sports, and Technology & Engineering. ATAS has long presided over the Primetime Emmys.

Under the Academies’ partnership, the required qualifications for membership in the peer groups that exist in both organizations — Children’s Animation, Children’s Live Action, Daytime, and Documentary — will be identical, and members will automatically be enrolled in both organizations. Existing members of the Television Academy’s Children’s, Daytime, Documentary, and Science & Technology Peer Groups will retain those members while automatically becoming members of NATAS as well.

This peaceful collaboration is a significant development in that it showcases a genuine détente for separately-run cross-country rivals whose relationship had been mired in conflict and acrimony for decades, leading to their official separation and divorce in 1977. The feud devolved into bitter multimillion-dollar lawsuits and arbitration rulings. The groups officially shared ownership of the Emmy statuette and trademark but independently administered their awards competitions and saw their missions as radically different from one another.

But the deep freeze has seemingly thawed out due to the commitment of leadership at both ATAS and NATAS, which has concluded that their relationship should be more about coordination than competition.

In making the new announcement, Terry O’Reilly, executive committee chairperson for NATAS, said, “We share a common goal of ensuring that the Emmy remains our industry’s gold standard. While our respective academies recognize different genres of work, we believe that bringing our memberships together in this way will allow us to better recognize the breadth of television professionals working today, and to open doors to even more emerging artists who seek to join their peers and predecessors in the art of compelling storytelling.”

Added Television Academy Chair Chris Abrego: “The Television Academy’s Board of Governors enthusiastically embraced the creation of dual/national membership. This shift enhances the membership experience for Television Academy members whose work is recognized in the NATAS-administered Daytime Emmys and Children’s and Family Emmys, and unifies members from both academies who are committed to advancing excellence in documentary programming and promoting the technical and scientific evolution of our field.”

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