The SAG Awards are changing their name: Here come the Actor Awards

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If you’ve watched the Screen Actors Guild Awards over the years, you’ve heard the name of the prize countless times, even if it hasn’t quite registered.“And the Actor goes to ...

Timothée Chalamet.”“And the Actor goes to ...Demi Moore.”“And the Actor goes to ...

‘Conclave.’”Now, in an effort to lean into the name of the statuette and streamline the show’s title, the Screen Actors Guild Awards announced Friday that it is renaming the ceremony to the Actor Awards.Or, if you want to get precise (and a bit verbose): the Actor Awards presented by SAG-AFTRA.“Now that our global audience is really growing, people don’t always understand what the union name is,” says awards committee chair JoBeth Williams.

“But ‘the Actor Awards’ they recognize and they know they’re going to see their favorite actors when they tune in.” The SAG Awards have long been a reliable precursor to the Oscars on the awards season calendar, with last year being an exception.(Chalamet, Moore and “Conclave,” winner of the guild’s best picture equivalent, the ensemble honor, did not repeat their SAG successes.)Since the event moved to Netflix in 2024 from TNT and TBS, viewership numbers have increased, besting pre-pandemic levels.

Last year, per Netflix, the ceremony received 4.3 million views on the platform.That’s a far cry from just four years ago, when the pandemic forced ceremonies to postpone and shuffle dates, and the Grammys thought nothing of landing on the SAG Awards’ original date.(SAG-AFTRA voiced its “extreme disappointment,” then slunk off to Easter Sunday for a scheduled one-hour telecast.)“[Netflix] saw the potential of the show to really grow an audience,” says Jon Brockett, longtime showrunner and executive producer.

“We’re on 190-plus countries now on Netflix.So the simplification of the name, from a global perspective, should bri...