The 49th Primetime Emmy Awards were held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, California, in 1997. They were presented in two ceremonies hosted by Bryant Gumbel, one on Saturday, September 13 and another on Sunday, September 14. The September 14th ceremony was televised on CBS.
Frasier became the first series to win Outstanding Comedy Series four consecutive years, it joined Hill Street Blues which won Outstanding Drama Series four straight years a decade earlier. For the first time since 1979, James Burrows did not receive a Directing nomination, ending his run at 17 consecutive years. Beginning the following year, Burrows would begin a new streak that lasted another six years. In the drama field perennial nominee Law & Order won for its seventh season, the first time a show had won for this specific season. In winning Law & Order became the first drama series that did not have serialized story arcs[note 1] since Hill Street Blues perfected the formula. Law & Order remains the only non-serialized winner since 1981.
This is the most recent year in which the Big Four Networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC) took home the top 14 Emmys (Comedy and Drama Series, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress in Comedy and Drama, and Directing and Writing for Comedy and Drama).
The Larry Sanders Show had 16 nominations and zero wins, tying the record with Northern Exposure in 1993 and becoming the first (and only to date) comedy series to set the record. These records would later be broken by Mad Men in 2012 with 17 nominations and without a single win and The Handmaid's Tale in 2021 with 21 nominations and without a single win.
The Larry Sanders Show (HBO): "Ellen, or Isn't She?" – Story by : Garry Shandling, Judd Apatow and John Markus Teleplay by : Judd Apatow and John Markus
The Larry Sanders Show (HBO): "Everybody Loves Larry" – Jon Vitti
The Larry Sanders Show (HBO): "My Name is Asher Kingsley" – Peter Tolan
^Saying Law & Order had no serialized arcs is potentially misleading. It's true that Law & Order is at its core a procedural, with only very lightly-serialized elements as a general rule. However, in its Emmy-winning season, the show had a three-episode arc—"D-Girl", "Turnaround", and "Showtime"—concerning a high-profile murder case. In addition, the episode "Entrapment" was a sequel to season 3's "Conspiracy" .
^ ab"Major" constitutes the categories listed above: Program, Acting, Directing, and Writing. Does not include the technical categories.
