The 59th Primetime Emmy Awards were held on Sunday, September 16, 2007, honoring the best in U.S. prime time television programming at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California.

The ceremony was televised live on Fox at 8:00 p.m. EDT for the first time in high definition (on tape delay three hours later on the West Coast of the United States at 8:00 p.m.).

It was also the most recent Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony to be held at the Shrine Auditorium, as it was then relocated to the Nokia Theatre from the following year (PDT/3:00 UTC).

[2] Ratings plunged further down to a near an all-time low as an estimate 12.87 million, 19% lower than the past year,[3] making it the second smallest television audience in Emmy history, behind the 1990 telecast.

[4] Meanwhile, the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony, hosted by comedian-actor Carlos Mencia, were presented eight days earlier on September 9.

There was a competition between singer Kanye West (who attended the ceremony in retaliation for his loss at MTV's Video Music Awards earlier that month) and The Office actor Rainn Wilson similar to Don't Forget the Lyrics!

Stewart immediately announced, "Ricky Gervais couldn't be here tonight, so instead we're going to give this to our friend Steve Carell" (who had been nominated for his role on The Office).

When Ray Romano delivered a comic monologue about the change of television in the years since he left his own show, he mentioned that "for one, from what I hear, Frasier is screwing my wife?".

[citation needed] When Katherine Heigl accepted her award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, she accidentally used profanity in her speech, causing Fox to cut the audio and once again replaced its feed with the pre-recorded shot of the display ball, only to return a moment later.

After giving an acceptance speech which included anti-war statements, partially as a tribute to her Brothers & Sisters character Nora Walker, the audience applauded before she was finished and Field, finding herself lost for words, couldn't remember what she was going to say.