The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences was founded in 1946, just one month after network television was born. It is a nonprofit organization devoted to the advancement of telecommunications arts and sciences and to fostering creative leadership in the telecommunications industry. The Television Academy is the only major organization devoted entirely to television and is made up of more than 15,000 members representing 28 professional peer groups, including performers, directors, producers, art directors and various other artisans, technicians and executives.

Emmy Award

In 1949, the Television Academy held the first Emmy Award

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

s ceremony, an annual event created to recognize excellence in television programming. The name “Emmy” was derived from “Immy,” a nickname for the image orthicon camera tube, which was instrumental in the development of modern television. The word was feminized as “Emmy” to complement the design chosen for the statuette, which depicted a winged, idealized woman holding an atom.

The Emmy Awards are administered by three sister organizations who focus on various sectors of television programming: the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (primetime), the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (daytime, sports, news and documentary), and the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (international).

Publications and programs

In addition to recognizing outstanding programming through its Primetime EmmyAwards, the Television Academy publishes the award-winning Emmy magazine and through the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation

Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation is the charitable arm of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The Foundation’s educational and preservation programs include the Summer Internship program, the College Television Awards, the Fred Rogers Memorial Scholarship and the Archive...

, is responsible for the Archive of American Television

Archive of American Television

The Archive of American Television is a division of the non-profit Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation that films interviews with notable people from all aspects of the television industry....

, annual College Television Awards, Fred Rogers Memorial Scholarship

Fred Rogers Memorial Scholarship

Presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation, The Fred Rogers Memorial Scholarship honors students in the fields of children's media who follow in the tradition of Fred Rogers and show outstanding promise toward making the world a better place by way of children's media.-...

, acclaimed student internships and other educational outreach programs.

Current governance

• John Shaffner (Chairman & Chief Executive Officer)
• Nancy Bradley Wiard (Vice Chair)
• Stacey Luchs Struber (Second Vice Chair)
• Marcelino Ford (Secretary)
• Kevin Hamburger (Treasurer)
• Joetta Di Bella (Los Angeles Area Vice Chair)
• Dick Askin (Chair’s Appointee)
• Albert Cheng (Chair’s Appointee)
• Benito Martinez (Chair’s Appointee)
• Millicent Shelton (Chair’s Appointee)
• Conrad Bachmann (Governors' Appointee)
• Tim Gibbons (Governors' Appointee)
• Geoff Katz (Governors' Appointee)
• John Moffitt (Governors' Appointee)
• Jerry Petry (Academy Foundation Chairman)
• Leo Chaloukian, C.A.S. (Ex-Officio Member)
• Thomas W. Sarnoff (Ex-Officio Member)

Current Board of Governors

Music

Mark Adler

Mark E. Watters

Performers

Kathryn Joosten

Conrad Bachmann

Cinematographers

Lowell Peterson, A.S.C.

Gary Baum

Title Design

Lynda Kahn

Jon Teschner

Special Visual Effects

Kevin Pike

Mark Scott Spatny

Stunts

Ted Barba

Anthony Molinari

Interactive Media

Geoff Katz

Lori Schwartz

Children's Programming

Michael R. Polis

Daniel Evans, III

Producers

Steven Kent

Tim Gibbons

Costume Design & Supervision

Betsey Potter

Mary Rose

Professional Representatives

Beth Bohn

Chris Newman

Animation

Shaun Cashman

Melinda Leasure

Picture Editors

Jonathon Braun, A.C.E.

Jason Rosenfield, A.C.E.

Public Relations

Sharon Liggins

Nancy Carr

Commercials

Sheila Manning

Frank Scherma

Nonfiction Programming

Mark Samels

Shari Cookson

Casting Directors

Howard Meltzer, CSA

Mark Teschner, CSA

Makeup/Hairstylists

Patricia Messina

Judy Crown

Directors

Lee Miller

John C. Moffitt

Television Executives

Michael Sluchan

Robert Swartz

Writers

Kirk Ellis

Margaret Nagle

Sound Editors

Edward Fassl

Eileen Horta

Sound

Frank Morrone, C.A.S.

Michael Olman, C.A.S.

Los Angeles Area

Greg Taylor

Sabrina Fair Thomas

Daytime Programming

John C. Fisher

Matthew J. Olsen

Art Directors/Set Decorators

Leslie Frankenheimer

James Robert Yarnell

Production Executives

Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg

Lucia Gervino

Electronic Production

John D. O’Brien

Stephen A. Jones

20th

• Diahann Carroll
• Tom Freston
  Tom Freston
  Thomas E. Freston is an American entertainment industry executive. He currently is a principal in Firefly3 LLC, a consulting and investment company. Currently he consults Oprah Winfrey, among others....
  
  
• Earle Hagen
  Earle Hagen
  Earle Harry Hagen was an American composer who created music for movies and television. He is remembered for co-writing and whistling "The Fishin' Hole", the melody of the main theme to The Andy Griffith Show, the instrumental classic "Harlem Nocturne" used as the theme to television's Mickey...
  
  
• Susan Harris
  Susan Harris
  Susan Harris is an American television comedy writer and producer.Harris created numerous TV series: Soap, Benson, The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, Nurses, and The Golden Palace....
  
  
• Peter Jennings
  Peter Jennings
  Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings, CM was a Canadian American journalist and news anchor. He was the sole anchor of ABC's World News Tonight from 1983 until his death in 2005 of complications from lung cancer...
  
  
• Cloris Leachman
  Cloris Leachman
  Cloris Leachman is an American actress of stage, film and television. She has won eight Primetime Emmy Awards—more than any other performer—and one Daytime Emmy Award...
  
  
• Bill Todman
  Bill Todman
  William S. "Bill" Todman was an American television producer born in New York City. He produced many of television's longest running shows with business partner Mark Goodson.-Early life:...
  
  

19th

• Candice Bergen
  Candice Bergen
  Candice Patricia Bergen is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for starring in two TV series, as the title character on the situation comedy Murphy Brown , for which she won five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards; and as Shirley Schmidt on the comedy-drama Boston Legal...
  
  
• Charles Lisanby
  Charles Lisanby
  Charles Alvin Lisanby is an American Emmy-winning production designer who helped pioneer color television scenic design. He has been nominated for 16 Emmys and has won three. In January 2010 Charles was inducted into the 19th Annual Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame alongside...
  
  
• Don Pardo
  Don Pardo
  Dominick George "Don" Pardo is an American radio and television announcer. He is best known as the voice of the long-running late night sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live....
  
  
• Gene Roddenberry
  Gene Roddenberry
  Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry was an American television screenwriter, producer and futurist, best known for creating the American science fiction series Star Trek. Born in El Paso, Texas, Roddenberry grew up in Los Angeles, California where his father worked as a police officer...
  
  
• The Smothers Brothers
• Bob Stewart
  Bob Stewart
  Bob Stewart may refer to:*Bob Stewart , television producer*Bob Stewart , tuba player*Bob Stewart , ice hockey player...
  
  

18th

• Beatrice Arthur
  Beatrice Arthur
  Beatrice "Bea" Arthur was an American actress, comedienne and singer whose career spanned seven decades. Arthur achieved fame as the character Maude Findlay on the 1970s sitcoms All in the Family and Maude, and as Dorothy Zbornak on the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls, winning Emmy Awards for both...
  
  
• Larry Gelbart
  Larry Gelbart
  Larry Simon Gelbart was an American television writer, playwright, screenwriter and author.-Early life:...
  
  
• Merv Griffin
  Merv Griffin
  Mervyn Edward "Merv" Griffin, Jr. was an American television host, musician, actor, and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer who went on to appear in movies and on Broadway. From 1965 to 1986 Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show on Group W Broadcasting...
  
  
• Thomas S. Murphy
  Thomas Murphy (broadcasting)
  Thomas S. Murphy is an American broadcast executive, and was chair and chief executive officer of Capital Cities / ABC, Inc. until 1996. Together with fellow Capital Cities executive Daniel Burke, Murphy engineered the 1986 acquisition of the American Broadcasting Company in 1986 for $3.5 billion...
  
  
• Daniel B. Burke
  Capital Cities Communications
  Capital Cities redirects here. For the article about the seat of a government, see Capital .Capital Cities Communications was an American media company best known for its surprise purchase of the much larger American Broadcasting Company in 1985...
  
  
• Sherwood Schwartz
  Sherwood Schwartz
  Sherwood Charles Schwartz was an American television producer. He worked on radio shows in the 1940s, and created the television series Gilligan's Island on CBS and The Brady Bunch on ABC...
  
  

17th

• Tom Brokaw
  Tom Brokaw
  Thomas John "Tom" Brokaw is an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He is the author of The Greatest Generation and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors...
  
  
• James Burrows
  James Burrows
  James Edward Burrows is an American television director who has been working in television since the 1970s.-Biography:...
  
  
• Leonard Goldberg
  Leonard Goldberg
  Leonard J. Goldberg is an American film producer and television producer. He has his own production company, Mandy Films. He served as head of programming for ABC, and was president of 20th Century Fox...
  
  
• Regis Philbin
  Regis Philbin
  Regis Francis Xavier Philbin is an American media personality, actor and singer, known for hosting talk and game shows since the 1960s. Philbin is often called "the hardest working man in show business" and holds the Guinness World Record for the most time spent in front of a television camera...
  
  
• William Shatner
  William Shatner
  William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T...
  
  

16th

• Bob Barker
  Bob Barker
  Robert William "Bob" Barker is a former American television game show host. He is best known for hosting CBS's The Price Is Right from 1972 to 2007, making it the longest-running daytime game show in North American television history, and for hosting Truth or Consequences from 1956 to 1975.Born...
  
  
• Art Carney
  Art Carney
  Arthur William Matthew “Art” Carney was an American actor in film, stage, television and radio. He is best known for playing Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners....
  
  
• Katie Couric
  Katie Couric
  Katherine Anne "Katie" Couric is an American journalist and author. She serves as Special Correspondent for ABC News, contributing to ABC World News, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America, This Week and primetime news specials...
  
  
• Dan Rather
  Dan Rather
  Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...
  
  
• Brandon Tartikoff
  Brandon Tartikoff
  Brandon Tartikoff was a television executive who was credited with turning around NBC's low prime time reputation with such hit series as Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, ALF, Family Ties, The Cosby Show, Cheers, Seinfeld, Miami Vice, The Golden Girls, Knight Rider, The A-Team, St...
  
  
• Charles Cappleman

15th

• Tim Conway
  Tim Conway
  Thomas Daniel "Tim" Conway is an American comedian and actor, primarily known for his roles in sitcoms, films and television. Conway is best known for his role as the inept second-in-command officer, Ensign Charles Parker, to Lt...
  
   & Harvey Korman
  Harvey Korman
  Harvey Herschel Korman was an American comedic actor who performed in television and movie productions beginning in 1960...
  
  
• John Frankenheimer
  John Frankenheimer
  John Michael Frankenheimer was an American film and television director known for social dramas and action/suspense films...
  
  
• Bob Mackie
  Bob Mackie
  Robert Gordon Mackie is an American fashion designer, best known for his costuming for entertainment icons such as Judy Garland, Cher, Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, Tina Turner, and Mitzi Gaynor...
  
  
• Jean Stapleton
• Bud Yorkin
  Bud Yorkin
  Bud Yorkin is an American film and television producer, director, writer and actor.Yorkin was born Alan David Yorkin in Washington, Pennsylvania. He earned a degree in engineering from Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsbugh, Pennsylvania...
  
  

14th

• Herbert Brodkin
• Robert MacNeil
  Robert MacNeil
  Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil, OC, known sometimes as Robin MacNeil, , is currently a novelist and formerly was a television news anchor and journalist who had paired with Jim Lehrer to create The MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1975.-Early life:MacNeil was born in Montreal, the son of Margaret...
  
   & Jim Lehrer
  Jim Lehrer
  James Charles "Jim" Lehrer is an American journalist and the executive editor and former news anchor for PBS NewsHour on PBS, known for his role as a frequent debate moderator during elections...
  
  
• Lorne Michaels
  Lorne Michaels
  Lorne Michaels, CM is a Canadian-American television producer, writer, and comedian best known for creating and producing Saturday Night Live and producing the various film and TV projects that spun off from it.-Early life:...
  
  
• Carl Reiner
  Carl Reiner
  Carl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...
  
  
• Fred Rogers
• Fred Silverman
  Fred Silverman
  Fred Silverman is an American television executive and producer. He worked as an executive at the CBS, ABC and NBC networks, and was responsible for bringing to television such programs as the series Scooby-Doo , All in the Family , The Waltons , and Charlie's Angels , as well as the...
  
  
• Ethel Winant

13th

• James L. Brooks
  James L. Brooks
  James Lawrence Brooks is an American director, producer and screenwriter. Growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life and passed the time by reading and writing. After dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the...
  
  
• Garry Marshall
  Garry Marshall
  Garry Kent Marshall is an American actor, director, writer and producer. His notable credits include creating Happy Days and The Odd Couple and directing Nothing In Common, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, Valentine's Day, and The Princess Diaries.-Early life:Marshall was born in the New York City...
  
  
• Quinn Martin
  Quinn Martin
  Quinn Martin was one of the most successful American television producers. He had at least one television series running in prime time for 21 straight years , an industry record.-Early life:...
  
  
• Diane Sawyer
  Diane Sawyer
  Lila Diane Sawyer is the current anchor of ABC News' flagship program, ABC World News. Previously, Sawyer had been co-anchor of ABC Newss morning news program, Good Morning America ....
  
  
• Grant Tinker
  Grant Tinker
  Grant Almerin Tinker is the former chairman and CEO of NBC from 1981 to 1986, co-founder of MTM Enterprises, and television producer. Tinker is the former husband of television actress Mary Tyler Moore...
  
  

12th

• Edward Asner
• Steven Bochco
  Steven Bochco
  Steven Ronald Bochco is a US television producer and writer. He has developed a number of popular television hits including Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and NYPD Blue, as well as some notable flops such as Cop Rock....
  
  
• Marcy Carsey
  Marcy Carsey
  Marcy Carsey is American television producer. She is best known for her work with fellow producer Tom Werner forming the company Carsey-Werner Productions in 1981.-Life and career:...
  
   and Tom Werner
  Tom Werner
  Thomas Charles "Tom" Werner is an American television producer and businessman who, via his investment in New England Sports Ventures, is chairman of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club....
  
  
• Charles Kuralt
  Charles Kuralt
  Charles Kuralt was an American journalist. He was most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.Kuralt's "On the Road"...
  
  
• Angela Lansbury
  Angela Lansbury
  Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...
  
  
• Aaron Spelling
  Aaron Spelling
  Aaron Spelling was an American film and television producer. As of 2009, Spelling's eponymous production company Spelling Television holds the record as the most prolific television writer, with 218 producer and executive producer credits...
  
  
• Lew Wasserman
  Lew Wasserman
  Lewis Robert "Lew" Wasserman was an American talent agent and studio executive, sometimes credited with creating and later taking apart the studio system in a career spanning more than six decades...
  
  

11th

• Michael Landon
  Michael Landon
  Michael Landon was an American actor, writer, director, and producer. He is widely known for his roles as Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza , Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie , and Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven...
  
  
• Richard Levinson
  Richard Levinson
  Richard Levinson was an American writer and producer who often worked in collaboration with William Link. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bachelor's Degree in Economics in 1956. He served in the United States Army from...
  
   and William Link
  William Link
  William Theodore Link is an American film and television writer and producer who often worked in collaboration with Richard Levinson.-Life and career:...
  
  
• Jim McKay
  Jim McKay
  James Kenneth McManus , better known by his professional name of Jim McKay, was an American television sports journalist....
  
  
• Bill Moyers
  Bill Moyers
  Bill Moyers is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the United States President Lyndon B. Johnson Administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public...
  
  
• Dick Van Dyke
  Dick Van Dyke
  Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke, and father of Barry Van Dyke...
  
  
• Betty White
  Betty White
  Betty White Ludden , better known as Betty White, is an American actress, comedienne, singer, author, and former game show personality. With a career spanning seven decades since 1939, she is best known to modern audiences for her television roles as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and...
  
  

10th

• Alan Alda
  Alan Alda
  Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo , better known as Alan Alda, is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and author. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series M*A*S*H...
  
  
• Howard Cosell
  Howard Cosell
  Howard William Cosell was an American sports journalist who was widely known for his blustery, cocksure personality. Cosell said of himself, "Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. I have been called all of these...
  
  
• Barry Diller
  Barry Diller
  Barry Charles Diller is the Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp and the media executive responsible for the creation of Fox Broadcasting Company and USA Broadcasting.-Early life:...
  
  
• Fred W. Friendly
  Fred W. Friendly
  Fred W. Friendly was a president of CBS News and the creator, along with Edward R. Murrow, of the documentary television program See It Now...
  
  
• William Hanna
  William Hanna
  William Denby Hanna was an American animator, director, producer, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of people for much of the 20th century. When he was a young child, Hanna's family moved frequently, but they settled in Compton, California, by...
  
   & Joseph Barbera
  Joseph Barbera
  Joseph Roland Barbera was an influential American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist, whose film and television cartoon characters entertained millions of fans worldwide for much of the twentieth century....
  
  
• Oprah Winfrey
  Oprah Winfrey
  Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
  
  

9th

• John Chancellor
  John Chancellor
  John William Chancellor was a well-known American journalist who spent most of his career with NBC News...
  
  
• Dick Clark
• Phil Donahue
  Phil Donahue
  Phillip John "Phil" Donahue is an American media personality, writer, and film producer best known as the creator and host of The Phil Donahue Show. The television program, also known as Donahue, was the first to use a talk show format. The show had a 26-year run on U.S...
  
  
• Mark Goodson
  Mark Goodson
  Mark Goodson was an American television producer who specialized in game shows.-Life and early career:...
  
  
• Bob Newhart
  Bob Newhart
  George Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...
  
  
• Agnes Nixon
  Agnes Nixon
  Agnes Nixon is an American writer and producer. She attended Northwestern University where she was a member of Alpha Chi Omega sorority, and is best known as the creator of soap operas such as One Life to Live and All My Children...
  
  
• Jack Webb
  Jack Webb
  John Randolph "Jack" Webb , also known by the pseudonym John Randolph, was an American actor, television producer, director and screenwriter, who is most famous for his role as Sergeant Joe Friday in the radio and television series Dragnet...
  
  

8th

• Bill Cosby
  Bill Cosby
  William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, the...
  
  
• Andy Griffith
  Andy Griffith
  Andy Samuel Griffith is an American actor, director, producer, Grammy Award-winning Southern-gospel singer, and writer. He gained prominence in the starring role in director Elia Kazan's epic film A Face in the Crowd before he became better known for his television roles, playing the lead...
  
  
• Ted Koppel
  Ted Koppel
  Edward James "Ted" Koppel is an English-born American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor for Nightline from the program's inception in 1980 until his retirement in late 2005. After leaving Nightline, Koppel worked as managing editor for the Discovery Channel before resigning in 2008...
  
  
• Sheldon Leonard
  Sheldon Leonard
  Sheldon Leonard was a pioneering American film and television producer, director, writer, and actor.-Biography:...
  
  
• Dinah Shore
  Dinah Shore
  Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality...
  
  
• Ted Turner
  Ted Turner
  Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
  
  

7th

• Leonard Bernstein
  Leonard Bernstein
  Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
  
  
• Desi Arnaz
  Desi Arnaz
  Desi Arnaz was a Cuban-born American musician, actor and television producer. While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is probably best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series I Love Lucy, starring with Lucille Ball, to...
  
  
• Mike Wallace
  Mike Wallace
  Michael Wallace may refer to:*Mike Wallace , television correspondent**The Mike Wallace Interview, his TV series*Mike Wallace , American historian...
  
  
• Danny Thomas
  Danny Thomas
  Danny Thomas was an American nightclub comedian and television and film actor, best known for starring in the television sitcom Make Room for Daddy . He was also the founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital...
  
  
• James Garner
  James Garner
  James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...
  
  
• The Series I Love Lucy
  I Love Lucy
  I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on the Columbia Broadcasting System...
  
  

6th

• Roone Arledge
  Roone Arledge
  Roone Pickney Arledge, Jr. was an American sports broadcasting pioneer who was chairman of ABC News from 1977 until several years before his death, and a key part of the company's rise to competition with the two other main television networks, NBC and CBS, in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s.-Early...
  
  
• Fred Astaire
  Fred Astaire
  Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
  
  
• Perry Como
  Perry Como
  Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...
  
  
• Joan Ganz Cooney
  Joan Ganz Cooney
  Joan Ganz Cooney is an American television producer. She is one of the founders of the Children's Television Workshop , the organization famous for the creation of the children's television show Sesame Street. Cooney received her B.A...
  
  
• Don Hewitt
  Don Hewitt
  Donald Shepard "Don" Hewitt was an American television news producer and executive, best known for creating 60 Minutes, the CBS television news magazine, in 1968, which at the time of his death, was the longest-running prime-time broadcast on American television...
  
  
• Carroll O'Connor
  Carroll O'Connor
  John Carroll O'Connor best known as Carroll O'Connor, was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades...
  
  
• Barbara Walters
  Barbara Walters
  Barbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...
  
  

5th

• Jack Benny
  Jack Benny
  Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
  
  
• George Burns
  George Burns
  George Burns , born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, television and movies, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became...
  
   & Gracie Allen
  Gracie Allen
  Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen , known as Gracie Allen, was an American comedian who became internationally famous as the zany partner and comic foil of husband George Burns...
  
  
• Chet Huntley
  Chet Huntley
  Chester Robert "Chet" Huntley was an American television newscaster, best known for co-anchoring NBC's evening news program, The Huntley-Brinkley Report, for 14 years beginning in 1956.-Early life:...
  
   & David Brinkley
  David Brinkley
  David McClure Brinkley was an American newscaster for NBC and ABC in a career lasting from 1943 to 1997....
  
  
• Red Skelton
  Red Skelton
  Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American comedian who is best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, night clubs and casinos, all while pursuing...
  
  
• David Susskind
  David Susskind
  David Susskind was a producer of TV, movies, and stage plays and also a pioneer TV talk show host.-Personal:...
  
  
• David L. Wolper
  David L. Wolper
  David Lloyd Wolper was an American television and film producer, responsible for shows such as Roots, The Thorn Birds, North & South, L.A. Confidential, and the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory...
  
  

4th

• Johnny Carson
  Johnny Carson
  John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...
  
  
• Jacques-Yves Cousteau
  Jacques-Yves Cousteau
  Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water...
  
  
• Leonard Goldenson
  Leonard Goldenson
  Leonard H. Goldenson was President of the U.S. television and radio broadcaster ABC.-Early life and career:...
  
  
• Jim Henson
  Jim Henson
  James Maury "Jim" Henson was an American puppeteer best known as the creator of The Muppets. As a puppeteer, Henson performed in various television programs, such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, films such as The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, and created advanced puppets for...
  
  
• Bob Hope
  Bob Hope
  Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
  
  
• Ernie Kovacs
  Ernie Kovacs
  Ernie Kovacs was a Hungarian American comedian and actor.Kovacs' uninhibited, often ad-libbed, and visually experimental comedic style came to influence numerous television comedy programs for years after his death in an automobile accident...
  
  
• Eric Sevareid
  Eric Sevareid
  Arnold Eric Sevareid was a CBS news journalist from 1939 to 1977. He was one of a group of elite war correspondents—dubbed "Murrow's Boys"—because they were hired by pioneering CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow....
  
  

3rd

• Steve Allen
  Steve Allen
  Steve Allen may refer to:*Steve Allen , American musician, comedian, and writer*Steve Allen , presenter on the London-based talk radio station LBC 97.3...
  
  
• Fred Coe
  Fred Coe
  Fred Coe , nicknamed Pappy, was a television producer and director most famous for The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse in 1948-1955 and Playhouse 90 from 1957 to 1959...
  
  
• Walt Disney
  Walt Disney
  Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
  
  
• Jackie Gleason
  Jackie Gleason
  Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
  
  
• Mary Tyler Moore
  Mary Tyler Moore
  Mary Tyler Moore is an American actress, primarily known for her roles in television sitcoms. Moore is best known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show , in which she starred as Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman who worked as a local news producer in Minneapolis, and for her earlier role as...
  
  
• Frank Stanton
  Frank Stanton
  Frank Nicholas Stanton was an American broadcasting executive who served as the president of CBS between 1946 and 1971 and then vice chairman until 1973. He also served as the chairman of the Rand Corporation from 1961 until 1967.Along with William S. Paley, Stanton is credited with the...
  
  
• Burr Tillstrom
  Burr Tillstrom
  Franklin Burr Tillstrom was a puppeteer and the creator of Kukla, Fran and Ollie....
  
  

2nd

• Carol Burnett
  Carol Burnett
  Carol Creighton Burnett is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she made her television debut...
  
  
• Sid Caesar
  Sid Caesar
  Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer known as the leading man on the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2.- Early life :Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York,...
  
  
• Walter Cronkite
  Walter Cronkite
  Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
  
  
• Joyce C. Hall
• Rod Serling
  Rod Serling
  Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling was an American screenwriter, novelist, television producer, and narrator best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen and helped form...
  
  
• Ed Sullivan
  Ed Sullivan
  Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of the TV variety show The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was broadcast from 1948 to 1971 , which made it one of the longest-running variety shows in U.S...
  
  
• Pat Weaver
  Pat Weaver
  Sylvester Barnabee "Pat" Weaver was an American radio advertising executive, who became president of NBC between 1953 and 1955. He has been credited with reshaping commercial broadcasting's format and philosophy as radio gave way to television as America's dominant home entertainment...
  
  

1st

• Lucille Ball
  Lucille Ball
  Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
  
  
• Milton Berle
  Milton Berle
  Milton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...
  
  
• Paddy Chayefsky
  Paddy Chayefsky
  Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky , was an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for Best Screenplay....
  
  
• Norman Lear
  Norman Lear
  Norman Milton Lear is an American television writer and producer who produced such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude...
  
  
• Edward R. Murrow
  Edward R. Murrow
  Edward Roscoe Murrow, KBE was an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States and Canada.Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, and Alexander Kendrick...
  
  
• William S. Paley
  William S. Paley
  William S. Paley was the chief executive who built Columbia Broadcasting System from a small radio network into one of the foremost radio and television network operations in the United States.-Early life:...
  
  
• David Sarnoff
  David Sarnoff
  David Sarnoff was an American businessman and pioneer of American commercial radio and television. He founded the National Broadcasting Company and throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his...
  
  

External links

• Official Emmy Award site
• Official Member Website
• The Archive of American Television