NBC to air Emmy Awards on Monday (yes, Monday) Aug. 25

NBC announced Tuesday that it will broadcast the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards live from the Nokia Theatre in L.A. on Aug. 25, a month earlier than usual and on a Monday rather than a Sunday.

The move to late August — the Emmys typically are broadcast just before the TV season officially starts in the third week of September — was expected in order to avoid a scheduling conflict with “Sunday Night Football,” which usually begins airing in early September. Such a change is not unprecedented: The last two times the network aired the Emmys, in 2006 and 2010, it did so in August.

However, the switch to Monday night is more unusual, given that most of the big-name awards shows, including the Oscars, Grammys and Golden Globes, are broadcast on Sundays when the number of available viewers is typically larger. According to NBC, the last time the Emmys were broadcast on a Monday night was in 1976.

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So why the switch?

If NBC had moved the Emmy Awards to Sunday, Aug. 24, the show would go head-to-head with MTV’s popular Video Music Awards. NBC may also be leaving the evening free in case of a preseason NFL game.

As for the possibility of moving the Emmys to a Monday in September, that would mean breaking with a long-standing industry tradition that the Emmy Awards take place the weekend following the Creative Emmy Awards, which are already locked into Aug. 16.

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Twitter: @MeredithBlake