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The American Music Awards are likely to be taking a year-long hiatus, Variety has learned.
After announcing that the Billboard Music Awards would be moving the date to November 19, 2023, normally a Sunday held for the AMAs, parent company Dick Clark Productions seems left with no choice but to push the AMAs back to 2024 , if this is possible take the May slot previously held by Billboard.
Multiple sources say neither has landed a broadcast partner, and producer Dick Clark Productions, of Penske Media Corp. (parent company of Variety and Billboard) had to make the decision of which show to leave behind. Since PMC owns the publication Billboard, insiders suggest the idea was to promote its own brand. There is talk among music industry professionals that the AMAs, introduced in 1973, were obsolete.
However, a spokeswoman for PMC claimed talks for both awards shows are ongoing. “We have offers for both shows from networks and streamers,” said a PMC spokeswoman.
ABC, which has been a partner of the American Music Awards for some time, was unaware of the BBMAs’ change until it was publicly announced on March 15. A source close to the situation told Variety that no decisions have been made about a contract extension for the AMAs.
As for the BBMAs, sources also confirm that NBC, which has aired this show since 2018, has not picked it up this year. Instead, NBC is focused on expanding its People’s Choice Awards franchise this fall, including the new People’s Choice Country Awards coming out in September.
Ratings for the AMAs have steadily declined in recent years, with the show hitting a bottom in 2022 with a rating of 0.6 among adults in the key 18-49 demographic and just 3.53 million viewers overall. In the previous two years, the show was balanced, having ratings of 1.0 and 4 million viewers in both 2021 and 2020.
The AMAs were created by Dick Clark for ABC after the network lost the Grammys broadcast rights to CBS. By the mid-1980s, the AMAs had become a formidable competitor to the Grammys – in some years attracting even larger audiences, particularly during the heyday of Michael Jackson’s popularity earlier in the decade. The AMAs originally ran in the winter — either January or February — from 1974 to 2003. A second show also ran in November 2003, where it has aired ever since (until this year).
As for the Billboard Music Awards, the Kudocast started on Fox in 1990, where it stayed until 2006, always airing in early December. The awards show then went dark for several years until it was revived for ABC in 2011 and placed in a new May slot — presumably to avoid conflict with the AMAs. It stayed on ABC until 2017, but the show switched to rival network NBC in 2018. It aired on that network until 2022, typically occupying that Sunday in May.
The BBMAs have done a little better at maintaining their ratings in recent years, earning a 0.7 rating in both 2021 and 2022 and attracting an average of 2.8 million total viewers in 2021 and 2.6 million viewers in 2022.
Awards shows, of course, have to be licensed in order to broadcast – and sometimes stream these days – affiliates or they won’t get any ratings at all. Without a network definitely poised to take on the AMAs next year — or the BBMAs this year, for that matter — the real impact of this restructuring will take some time to materialize.
ABC declined to comment Friday.
(Jennifer Maas contributed to this report.)