Rumored Buzz On Television Exposed If you hear television award winners say, "I'd prefer to thank the academy," they're referring to both the ATAS or the NATAS. The first Emmys have been given out in 1949. The original name for the award was the Immy, a nickname for the picture orthicon tube, a part of an early kind of digital camera; however the academy started referring to it because the Emmy because that more feminine...