64th Primetime Emmy Awards

The 64th Primetime Emmy Awards, honoring the best in prime time television programming from June 1, 2011 until May 31, 2012, were held on Sunday, September 23, 2012 at the Nokia Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, California. ABC televised the ceremony in the United States. Comedian and late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel hosted the Primetime Emmys for the first time. Kimmel and Kerry Washington announced the nominations on July 19, 2012. Nick Offerman was originally scheduled to co-announce the nominations, but had to cancel due to travel delays. The Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony was held on September 15 and was televised on September 22, 2012 on ReelzChannel.

The award for Outstanding Drama Series went to Showtime crime drama Homeland, the first for that network, and which broke Mad Men's four-year hold on the award; while the Outstanding Comedy Series award went for the third year in a row to ABC's Modern Family. This was the first ceremony that none of the four major American broadcasting TV networks were nominated in the categories of Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. For Britain, the ceremony was noted for the successes of actors Damian Lewis of Homeland and Maggie Smith of Downton Abbey.

Of the latter, Dame Maggie not only was PBS' first win in her category, she had won the previous year, for the same role in another category. Hers was also the first win in a major acting category for a Drama Series for PBS since 1975.

Mad Men set a new record for the largest "shutout" in Emmy history, receiving nominations for 17 awards and winning none. This broke the previous record of 16 nominations without a win, set by Northern Exposure in 1993 and The Larry Sanders Show in 1997. This record was broken by The Handmaid's Tale in 2021, which did not win any of its 21 nominations that year.

Winners and nominees
Winners are listed first and highlighted in bold:



Most major awards

 * Notes

Presenters
The awards were presented by the following:

In Memoriam
Before the recorded segment, Ron Howard presented a tribute to Andy Griffith.

The people tributed in the segment included:


 * Marvin Hamlisch
 * Davy Jones
 * Hal Kanter
 * Richard Dawson
 * Jim Paratore
 * Lee Rich
 * Sherman Hemsley
 * Phyllis Diller
 * William Asher
 * Celeste Holm
 * Michael Clarke Duncan
 * Lupe Ontiveros
 * James Farentino
 * Irving Fein
 * Heavy D
 * Chad Everett
 * Don Cornelius
 * Robert Hegyes
 * Ron Palillo
 * Robert Easton
 * Andy Rooney
 * John Rich
 * Michele O'Callaghan
 * Steve Jobs
 * Gil Cates
 * Bob Henry
 * Al Freeman Jr.
 * Patrice O'Neal
 * Whitney Houston
 * Ben Gazzara
 * Donna Summer
 * Tony Scott
 * Kathryn Joosten
 * Paul Bogart
 * William Windom
 * Norman Felton
 * Frank Pierson
 * Mike Wallace
 * Ernest Borgnine
 * Harry Morgan
 * Dick Clark

Televised ceremony ratings
The ceremony, which was televised by ABC on September 23, 2012, was watched by 13.26 million viewers. The event's red carpet proceedings were watched by 5.63 million.