The story
Syd Cassyd considered television a beneficial tool for education and envisioned an organization that would act outside the "flash and glamor" of the industry and become an outlet for "serious discussion" and award the industry's "finest achievements". Envisioning a television counterpart of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Cassyd founded the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 1946 in conjunction with leaders of the early television industry who had gathered at a meeting he organized.
Cassyd's academy in Los Angeles merged with a New York academy founded by Ed Sullivan in 1955 to form the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The Los Angeles chapter broke away from NATAS in 1977, keeping the Primetime and Los Angeles Emmys.
In 2014, alongside its Hall of Fame induction ceremony and announced plans to expand its headquarters, the organization announced that it had changed its public brand to the Television Academy, with a new logo designed by Siegel + Gale. The new branding was intended to downplay the organization's antiquated formal name in favor of a more straightforward identity, and features a separating line (typically used to separate the organization's wordmark from a simplified image of the Emmy Award statuette) used to symbolize a screen, and also portrayed as a "portal".
In 2016, producer Hayma Washington was elected chairman and CEO of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, becoming the first African-American to hold the position.
In June 2026, the ATAS and the NATAS announced that they have begun exploratory discussions to re-merge.
From Wikipedia’s article on Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4