With awards season taking place, such as the Grammys, Emmys, as well as the Oscars scheduled for March, the focus tends to be on the nominees and winners. But how exactly do these world-famous events work behind the scenes?
Grammys
The Grammy Awards give a spotlight to lesser-known musicians, regardless of their fan bases and sales profits.
It is designed in a way for these artists to gain recognition, but also for the Grammys to increase in viewership and increase sales, known as an award show “bump”.
Nominations are collated by the Recording Academy, with voting members nominating artists via mail or online. Recordings released between 1 October of the previous year and 30 September of the current year are eligible.
The nominations are reviewed by experts and are sorted into their respective categories before ballots are mailed to voting members.
Voting members return their ballots to Deloitte, an accounting firm, who tally the votes. Only five nominees for each category can make it to the final round.
Results are placed into envelopes and are kept sealed until the ceremony takes place in Los Angeles.
The biggest headline for the 2026 Grammys was Bad Bunny’s win for Album of the Year, the first artist to win this award with an album full of Spanish-language songs.
This is also an important win as it occurred at a time when ICE and Donald Trump’s administration are targeting the Latin-American community, for whom Bad Bunny dedicated his award, saying it was for immigrants who “leave their home, land, their country, to follow their dreams”.
Emmys
The Emmy Awards give a spotlight to the achievements of the television industry.
Nominations are taken from 1 June from the previous year to May 31 of the current year.
Ballots of all entries are sent to the voting members, where they are returned to Ernst & Young, an accounting firm, where only five final nominees are decided.
The winners are placed into envelopes and are kept a secret until the award show is live, again in Los Angeles.
The biggest headline for the 2026 Emmys was the win of the ‘Adolescence’ star, Owen Copper, making him the youngest male ever to receive an Emmy award, doing so as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series.
The show ‘Adolescence’ was critically acclaimed for its impactful message of how misogyny and social media affect young and impressionable children.
Oscars
The Academy Awards, colloquially known as The Oscars, celebrate filmmaking from the previous year.
Members of the Academy, which include actors, producers and directors, are involved in the voting system and decide who will be nominated.
Ballots are mailed in January to each Academy member on their expert of work area, meaning for example, only directors can nominate people for Best Director.
For foreign films and documentaries, nominations are only chosen by certain people, and each member can vote for Best Picture.
It has only been in recent years that the winners are announced at the same time as it is presented. In previous years, winners were announced earlier so that newspapers could publish them in time.
However, newspapers started announcing the winners in their print earlier than the show, and the Academy feared that there would be a reduction in people attending the actual ceremony.
The biggest headline for the 2026 Oscars is that the movie ‘Sinners’ has 16 nominations.
Either ‘Sinners’ or ‘One Battle After Another’ is predicted to win Best Picture.
Jessie Buckley, Timothée Chalamet, Stellan Skarsgård and Teyana Taylor are predicted to win the acting awards when this year’s ceremony takes place in March.
Controversies
Many controversies surrounding these award shows have surfaced in recent years.
The biggest one is AI usage in the film ‘The Brutalist’, which won actor Adrien Brody his second Oscar award.
AI was used to fix the parts where Adrian Brody and Felicity Jones spoke Hungarian.
Director Brady Corbet says his “aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them.”
Many disagree with this statement due to the SAG-AFTRA strike that occurred in 2023, which took place due to concerns of AI being used to replicate actors without their consent.
As for the Grammys, many people are arguing that the category for ‘Best New Artist’ does not actually contain only new artists.
With Sabrina Carpenter being nominated, who ruled the summer of 2024 with her hit single ‘Espresso’, it is seen that she has been charting the Billboard Hot 100 since 2021, with her single ‘Skin’ marking No. 48.
So this raises the question: are these award shows fairly awarded?
