Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance

The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance was a Creative Arts Emmy Award given out by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. It was awarded to a performer for an outstanding "continuing or single voice-over performance in a series or a special."^[1] Prior to 1992, voice actors could be nominated for their performance in the live-action acting categories.^[2] The award was first given in 1992 when six voice actors from The Simpsons shared the award. From 1992 to 2008, it was a juried award, so there were no nominations and there would be multiple or no recipients in one year. In 2009, the rules were changed to a category award, with five nominees.

Usually, winners would be voice actors from animated shows, but some narrators of live-action shows won such as Keith David in 2005 and 2008. No winner was named in 1996 or 2007.^[3]

Nine voice actors from The Simpsons won a combined 14 Emmys in the category. Of those, Dan Castellaneta won four and Hank Azaria won three. Ja'net Dubois won two for The PJs, Keith David won two for his narration of various documentaries, and Maurice LaMarche won two for Futurama. Voice actors from shows on Fox won 17 of the 27 awards presented.

In 2014, the category was separated into two categories – Outstanding Narrator and Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance. This split acknowledged and accommodated a general industry uptrend in the distinctly different achievements that are voice-over narration and voice-over character performance.^[4]