The 2020 iHeartRadio Music Awards, originally scheduled to take place March 29 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, with Usher hosting, were officially canceled on Monday (Aug. 24).
But fear not, awards fans: The winners will still be announced over the Labor Day weekend (Sept. 4-7) on 840 iHeartRadio stations nationwide and via iHeart’s social platforms. The chain will even include acceptance speeches from the winners.
This year’s nominations were announced on Jan. 8, which means eight months will have elapsed between the announcement of the nominees and the revelation of the winners. Billie Eilish and Shawn Mendes were this year’s top nominees, with seven nods each. Taylor Swift and Camila Cabello each grabbed six nods.
This was to have been the iHearts’ return to the venerable Shrine Auditorium, which was the site of the first two iHeart shows in 2014 and 2015. But on March 12, in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the state of California restricted gatherings to a maximum of 250 people. On March 16, iHeart announced the ceremony’s postponement.
iHeart and its broadcast partner, Fox, improvised and came up with a substitute show on March 29, the iHeart Living Room Concert for America, hosted by Elton John. The show included performances from artists such as Alicia Keys, Billie Joe Armstrong, Cabello and Mendes, and Eilish and her brother/collaborator Finneas O’Connell performing from home, a fresh idea at the time.
The iHeartRadio Music Awards show aired on NBC in its first two years. The show aired on TBS, TNT and TruTV the next three years (2016-18). Fox, which began airing the show in 2019, was set to air this year’s show and will air the 2021 show, according to a statement from iHeart.
This story first appeared on Billboard.com
