The Costume Designers Guild Award for Excellence in Contemporary Television is one of the annual awards given by the Costume Designers Guild.
At the 1st Costume Designers Guild Awards ceremony (celebrating excellence in film and television of 1998), all television programs, regardless of genre or format, competed in a combined Excellence in Television category.
Among the inaugural nominees, four were period dramas, while the eventual winner, The Tempest, was a fantasy film.
Furthermore, all nominated shows were either limited series or television films, which makes it the only time with no regularly continued series recognized by the Guild.
Since 2015, the latter category was further divided into Excellence in Period Television and Excellence in Fantasy Television (renamed Excellence in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Television two years later), with each genre receiving its own award.