Watch 39th American Music Awards Live

Witness the awarding of the most popular artists and albums from the year 2011, the 39th American Music Awards. This event will be held on November 20, 2011 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. The American Music Awards is an annual major American music awards show (among the others are the Grammy Awards and the Billboard Music Awards).


The American Music Awards (AMAs) recognized the most popular artists and albums from the year 2011. Nominees were announced on October 11, 2011. The awards ceremony will be hosted by fellow nominees Nicki Minaj and rapper Pitbull. It will be broadcasted on ABC.

The first hosts for the first telecast of the AMAs were Helen Reddy, Roger Miller, and Smokey Robinson. Helen Reddy not only hosted the show but also became the first female artist to win an AMA for Favorite Pop/Rock Female artist. For the first decade or so, the AMAs had multiple hosts, each representing a genre of music. For instance, Glen Campbell would host the country portion (Campbell, in fact, has co-hosted the AMAs more times than any other host or co-host), while other artists would co-host to represent his/her genre. In recent years, however, there has been one single host. For the 2008 awards, Jimmy Kimmel hosted for the fourth consecutive year. In 2009, there was no host for the first time in history. Instead, the AMAs followed the Grammys' lead in having various celebrities give introductions.
From its inception in 1973 until 2003, the AMAs have been held in mid- to late-January, but were moved to November beginning in 2003 so as not to further compete with other major awards shows (such as the Golden Globe Awards and the Academy Awards) and allows for ABC to have a well-rated awards show during November sweeps.