American Music Awards | |
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American Music Awards of 2016 | |
Logo as of 2016
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Awarded for | favorite artists chosen in an online voting |
Country | United States |
First awarded | 1973 |
Official website | theamas.com |
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The American Music Awards (AMAs) is an annual American music awards show, created by Dick Clark in 1973 for ABC when the network's contract to air the Grammy Awards expired. Unlike the Grammys, which are awarded on the basis of votes by members of the Recording Academy, the AMAs are determined by a poll of the public and fans, who can vote through the AMAs website. The award statuette is manufactured by New York firm Society Awards.
The AMAs was created by Dick Clark in 1973 to compete with the Grammy Awards after the move of that year's show to Nashville, Tennessee led to CBS picking up the Grammy telecasts after its first two in 1971 and 1972 were broadcast on ABC. Michael Jackson and Donny Osmond co-hosted the first award show with Rodney Allen Rippy and Ricky Segall in 1974. In 2014, American network Telemundo acquired the rights to produce a Spanish-language version of the American Music Awards and launched the Latin American Music Awards in 2015.
The first hosts for the first telecast of the AMAs were Helen Reddy, Roger Miller, and Smokey Robinson. Helen Reddy not only hosted the show but also became the first female artist to win an AMA for Favorite Pop/Rock Female artist. For the first decade or so, the AMAs had multiple hosts, each representing a genre of music. For instance, Glen Campbell would host the country portion (Campbell, in fact, has co-hosted the AMAs more times than any other host or co-host), while other artists would co-host to represent his/her genre. In recent years, however, there has been one single host.