Virtual Awards?

 I only watched the first hour of the Emmy Award broadcast last night, but even that led to some questions:

Going in I thought, well, without the need to have winners walk their way to the stage, exchange greeting with the presenters and have their awards brought to them...and then to be "played off" after their acceptance speeches, this should move a lot faster than normal. But it didn't. My wife thought they were giving the winners more time for their speeches than usual, and perhaps they were. Still, I've seen grade school assembly programs with more energy.

And I had a question about security: Many of the statues were actually presented to the winners in their distant locations...including to the Schitts' Creek crew in Toronto. In order to that, the people handing them the awards had to be "on location" already...and that means someone other than the accountants charged with the vote counting had to know ahead of the envelope opening who the winner was...and, in terms of being somewhere like Toronto, possibly as much as 24 hours before. Were all those people bonded? Sworn to secrecy? "Honey, I have to fly to Toronto with a bunch of Emmy statues..." That didn't raise questions in someone's mind?

Finally, what's the point? I realize ABC has a contract with the TV Academy to broadcast the ceremony and there's money involved. But it seems to me the whole thing could have been done in about 90 minutes.

One last thing: Didn't someone realize the pandemic/lock-down gags would get old in about 15 minutes?