ABC Acquires Four-Year Rights to Prime-Time Emmys : Television: The academy says the awards will be better served if they have a ‘home’ than if they rotate among the four networks.

In an unexpected move, the board of governors of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences scrubbed a plan to alternate broadcasts of the Emmy Awards on CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox over the next four years and instead sold the sole rights to ABC.

The move is the latest in a series of steps to remove some of the recent tarnish from the annual TV industry awards show, which last year came under heavy attack for being too lengthy and too political and having too many complex categories. What’s more, the Emmys have been a ratings disappointment for four years on the smaller Fox network. Last year, the Daytime Emmys on CBS drew more viewers than Fox’s prime-time Emmys broadcast in August.

“Basically, the feeling was that the academy needed a home,” explained Richard Frank, president of Walt Disney Studios, who chaired the TV academy’s negotiating committee.

Before the board’s meeting on Wednesday night, ABC and NBC submitted separate competitive bids for the Emmys, offering a slightly higher licensing fee than the revolving, four-network “wheel” plan--although less than the $3-million-a-year Fox pact.

The board members spent four hours discussing the merit of the “wheel” deal, to which all four networks had agreed. But finally they chose to go with ABC. In addition to providing a stable home and a bigger audience, the deal provided extra money to support the academy’s various activities, ranging from student scholarships to anti-substance abuse programs.

“A home is basically a place you take care of, and it takes care of you,” Frank said. “And the feeling was that by being at ABC, ABC would have a stake in the success of the Emmys--as opposed to a ‘wheel’ system, where if you run it this year you don’t care what happens next year because you don’t get it for another three years.”

In addition to announcing the ABC deal on Thursday, the academy vowed that the 45th annual Emmy Awards will reduce the number of categories presented during the national telecast from 30 last year to no more than 25 this year. The telecast date has not been set.

ABC announced plans last year to premiere its own TV awards show in May, the American Television Awards, patterned after its successful American Music Awards. Frank said the academy did not ask ABC to cancel its program as a stipulation to carry the Emmys, because if ABC doesn’t do a TV awards show somebody else will. Indeed, Fox reportedly is already planning a TV Guide awards show.

“The academy members are not happy with (ABC’s) show, but we don’t feel that it’s our position to tell any network what shows it should carry or not carry,” Frank said. “We think it’s a totally phony awards show. We don’t think it’s any different from the People’s Choice Awards or anything else. But we also believe those shows will stand or fail on their own creativity.”