The 2015 Emmys Had The Most Black Women Winners In 24 Years

During Sunday’s broadcast 14 awards were handed out to 4 HBO shows, including a sweep of Best awards (technically the award is called “Outstanding”) in comedy (Veep), drama (Game of Thrones), limited series (Olive Kitteridge), and television movie (Bessie).

She won for her memorable role as the professor and defense attorney in ABC’s “How to Get Away With Murder“, which is just beginning its second season. “African American women can’t win for roles that aren’t there”, she declared.

“The Daily Show” won the Emmy for best variety talk series on Sunday, serving as a bittersweet farewell for Stewart’s reign as host of the late night show.

“Empire” star Taraji P. Henson, another black nominee in the category, stood and applauded Davis’ win.

His win, playing hard-drinking advertising boss Don Draper, came after eight years of being nominated, and as the show reached its final season.

That is the lowest viewership in the history of the awards, according to Nielsen.

The top-rated Emmys in recent years was the 2013 show, where comedies “Modern Family” and drama “Breaking Bad” won the top awards and which drew 17.76 million viewers overall. Despite speculation that non-network television like Netflix and Amazon would dominate, HBO reined supreme with major wins for Game of Thrones, Olive Kitteridge and Veep.

That point was brought home in Hollywood this morning, as the city woke up with an Emmy-sized hangover, with news that around 11.9 million people watched the 67th annual prime-time Emmy Awards. Did the voting block award the series for its previous success, reminded by this year of how great the show once was and hoping it won’t get worse?

In her acceptance speech, the actress, 50, said: “Let me tell you something”.

The actor climbed on to the stage to collect his award from Tina Fey but after composing himself said: “There has been a bad mistake clearly. Thanks for letting us be part of the change”, said Tambor, who plays a man journeying toward womanhood. His director, Jill Soloway, also took home an Emmy for best Comedy Director for their series, “Transparent”.

She thanked series creator Peter Nowalk, executive producer Shonda Rhimes and others, calling them “people who have redefined what it means to be attractive , to be sexy, to be a leading woman, to be black”.

Emmys voters didn’t give up their fondness for choosing the familiar over the groundbreaking in other categories as well.

“Veep” co-stars and Emmy champs Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tony Hale posed for photos – including selfies – underneath a mammoth rotating fire sculpture erected outside the Pacific Design Center.

Even Samberg got in on the fun, tracking down Martin in the audience and saying, “Thanks for telling me during the commercial that Jon Snow is alive”.