The American Music Awards show is one of several annual major
American music awards shows (among the others are the
Billboard Music Awards, the
Grammy Awards, and the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony). The AMAs (in current chronological order, the first of the "Big Three" music awards) were created by
Dick Clark in
1973 to compete with the Grammys after the move of that year's show to
Nashville, Tennessee led to
CBS picking up the Grammy telecasts after its first two in
1971 and
1972 were broadcast on
ABC.
Michael Jackson and
Donny Osmond co-hosted the first award show with Rodney Allen Rippy and Ricky Segall. While the Grammys are awarded based on votes by members of the entertainment industry, the AMAs are determined by a poll of music buyers. The "big three" established awards shows (AMAs, Billboard Music Awards, and Grammys) compete for prestige and
television ratings, with the Grammys nominally rewarding quality and both the AMAs and Billboard Music Awards rewarding popularity. Stories of artists being pressured to participate in one awards show over the other have been fodder for
tabloid gossip and controversy. The only other major difference between the Grammys and Billboard Music Awards is that the AMAs do not currently have an award for Best Single/Record but the Grammys and Billboard Music Awards do. In 1996, the AMAs instituted a new award, Favorite Artist of the Year, which was awarded to
Garth Brooks. Brooks gave a short speech essentially saying he didn't deserve the award in a year he didn't do anything, and left the award on the podium. The category was discontinued.
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