Jury Duty has earned the first Emmy Award nominations for Freevee, Amazon’s ad-supported streaming service
July 19, 2023
Jury Duty, the breakout comedy series on Amazon Freevee about the inner workings of U.S. court proceedings, has been nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards. Jury Duty is a docu-style program that follows “juror” Ronald Gladden. What Gladden doesn’t know is that the entire case is fake, everyone except him is an actor, including James Marsden, and everything that happens—inside the courtroom and out—is carefully planned.
The genre-bending comedy, which debuted on Amazon’s free ad-supported streaming service in April, has garnered a passionate following with nearly 300 million views on TikTok under the hashtag #jurydutyonFreevee. The show has received four Primetime Emmy nominations including Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, and Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series. Marsden, who plays an alternate version of himself, landed his first Emmy Award nomination, for supporting actor in a comedy series.
“The breakout success of Jury Duty has been incredible, and we are thrilled to see the show recognized by the industry,” said Tanner Elton, vice president of U.S. sales at Amazon Ads. “I’m proud of the high-quality content we’re producing for Freevee, which gives Amazon Ads customers a place to connect with audiences alongside fantastic shows like Jury Duty.”
In total, Amazon MGM Studios earned 68 nominations in 2023, marking the studio’s biggest Emmy Awards showing to date. This is the first year Amazon and MGM celebrate their Emmy Award nominations under one umbrella. With 14 nominations for its fifth and final season, Prime Video’s hit series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel became the most-ever Emmy-nominated streaming comedy, with 80 nominations. Prime Video earned 41 nominations, including nine for Daisy Jones & The Six and six for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. MGM earned 23 nominations, including 12 for Wednesday and four for The Voice.
Amazon Freevee, formerly IMDb TV, has become one of the premier destinations for customers to find premium streaming content available for free. The ad-supported video-on-demand service has seen tremendous growth in the past few years, driven by rapid distribution across living-room devices and mobile, an always updating library of highly sought-after movies and TV shows, and over 300 free, ad-supported channels.
At its NewFront presentation in May, Amazon Ads announced that brands that use Amazon’s ad-supported streaming TV solutions in the U.S.—across Amazon Freevee, Amazon Publisher Direct, Fire TV Channels, Thursday Night Football, and Twitch—can now reach an average monthly audience of more than 155 million viewers.
Freevee also introduced new Amazon Original content to debut in 2024, including Mock the Week, a half-hour topical and satirical panel show executive-produced by Emmy-winning comedian Trevor Noah and BAFTA Award–winning executive producer Dan Patterson; The Goat, a new reality competition series hosted by Daniel Tosh featuring 14 of the biggest names in reality TV competing in mental, physical, and social challenges; and Justice on Trial, a new court program featuring the iconic Judge Judy Sheindlin and a formidable ensemble of legal talent examining pivotal court cases, past and present, that have had a long-lasting impact on society.
Throughout this year, Amazon Freevee is also bringing over 100 Amazon Original series and movies from Prime Video, including titles such as Reacher, The Summer I Turned Pretty, The Wheel of Time, Troop Zero, and Late Night, which will all be available for customers to stream for free.