Winter press tour usually covers network midseason replacements, programs from streaming services and cable series which start in January, while the summer tour covers the new fall season for broadcast, streaming, and cable programming, along with serving as a part of the campaigning of shows, creatives and cast after the release of nominations for the Primetime Emmy Awards.
[2] These biannual conferences involve registered TCA members staying at a chosen Los Angeles venue for two to three weeks, and each network is assigned a series of days to showcase their programming.
In the past, these interviews with program casts and creative staff (usually the show's primary showrunner, producers, and writers) were mainly used to compile stories over a six-month period which could be posted over that period as columns, Q&A responses to reader mail questions timed to a program/film/special's release, or within their weekly television listings supplements, mainly in newspapers or magazines for critics and columnists outside of large metropolitan areas.
However, with the rise of the Internet and social media, these sessions now function to build buzz for programming within an immediate period, and only a few columnists for smaller publications and listing supplements maintain the former format of story release.
[4] At the start of May 2020, the organization cancelled their summer 2020 tour and delayed the TCA Awards to a time to be determined in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic making any large gathering over two weeks impossible, along with the uncertainty over the 2020–21 television season, including the conversion of network upfront presentations to videotelephony platforms and the ability to produce programming.