Apple burnished its streaming TV credentials on Sunday as “Ted Lasso” scored the Emmy award for best comedy, and Netflix landed its biggest television award to date with a best drama win for “The Crown”.

Netflix also tied the all-time record for the most Emmys in a single year with 44, a mark previously reached by Viacom CBS’s CBS broadcast network in 1974.

The honours will help the streaming services promote their offerings in the hard-fought battle for audiences ditching traditional TV and searching for quality entertainment online.

Apple TV+

“Ted Lasso” won seven awards overall for Apple TV+, the streaming service that Apple launched two years ago. Jason Sudeikis took home best comedy actor for his starring role as an upbeat American coach trying to rally a struggling soccer team in Britain.

Executive producer and co-creator Bill Lawrence, accepting the comedy series award, thanked the team at Apple including ‘T-Dog’, which he joked was his nickname for Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Since its debut, Apple TV+ has released dozens of original shows and movies and is trying to compete with streaming leader Netflix and other big media companies such as Walt Disney, AT&T and Amazon.com. These companies, and others, are spending billions of dollars to expand their own streaming services.

Apple has not disclosed how many people subscribe to AppleTV+, which offers only original programming making its menu smaller than rivals that offer libraries of older TV shows and movies. Last year, it won a supporting actor trophy for the drama “The Morning Show”.

HBO, which is in the process of being sold by AT&T to Discovery, had long dominated the Emmys until Netflix crashed the party in 2013 as streaming started to supplant cable subscriptions.

Netflix

Despite racking up nominations each year, Netflix had never won an Emmy for a series until Sunday. Alongside “The Crown”. it earned best limited series for “The Queen’s Gambit”, the story of an orphaned girl who becomes a chess champion.

Also see: Big wins for Olivia Colman, Kate Winslet at Emmy Awards

“Thank you to Netflix,” said executive producer William Horberg as he accepted the limited series honour. “You guys did the rarest thing of all these days. You took a chance on risky material and you trusted the film-makers.”

The HBO network and streaming service HBO Max finished second behind Netflix on Sunday with 19 wins for shows including “Mare of Easttown” and “Hacks.”

Disney’s streaming service, Disney+, won 13 awards for “WandaVision”, “The Mandalorian”, and other programming.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW