The Emmys, Tv Awards | featured news

'Homeland's' acting awards confirm the dominance of niche-oriented offerings over big-broadcast shows. The one-hour drama has a glorious history on broadcast TV, from the old days of "Gunsmoke" to acclaimed fare such as "Hill Street Blues" to current hits like "NCIS."

Tonight, TV is celebrating, well, TV. And we'll definitely be tuning in. And we assume you will too, which is why, with hours to go until the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards (which starts at 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT) we've compiled a list of everything you need to know before the festivities kick off.

Against a rousing football game on NBC, Fox’s broadcast of the Primetime Emmy Awards attracted an average of only 12.5 million people — the trophy show’s smallest audience since its famously disastrous 2008 broadcast on ABC. Last year’s Emmy show bagged about 1 million more viewers than Sunday’s, according to early reports (final national stats won’t be in until Tuesday morning).

The Emmy Awards telecast on Sunday night ended the same way it did last year, with “Modern Family” and “Mad Men” being named the best comedy and drama, respectively, on television.

"Mad Men," the sharply observed drama of a changing 1960s America, captured 19 Emmy nominations Thursday morning to lead the series pack, with the melodramatic miniseries "Mildred Pierce" starring Kate Winslet grabbing a top 21 bids.