Billboard Music Awards Announce 2022 Date

This spring will be a busy time of year for music awards shows, as the 2022 Billboard Music Awards entered the fray on Wednesday. The ceremony will air live on NBC Sunday, May 15 at 8 p.m. ET from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. That’s the same venue where the 2022 Grammy Awards were moved to.

The 2022 ceremony marks a return to Las Vegas after two consecutive years in the Los Angeles area. Before the 2020 and 2021 ceremonies moved to California, the Billboard Music Awards ceremonies were regularly held in Las Vegas, beginning in 1996. The MGM Grand Garden Arena hosted every ceremony from 1997 until 2015, then held the 2018 and 2019 shows. The host and performers will be announced later. MRC Live & Alternative is producing the show, and Robert Deaton is the executive producer.

Unlike most awards shows, the Billboard Music Awards are picked based on Billboard chart positions, which are determined through album and song sales, radio airplay, touring, social media engagement, and streaming. The 2021 ceremony saw The Weeknd win Top Artist, Top Male Artist, and Top Hot 100 Artist, while Taylor Swift won Top Female Artist and Top Billboard 200 Artist. BTS won Top Duo/Group and Top Song Sales Artist. Pink was honored with the Billboard Icon Award, while Drake received the Artist of the Decade Award.

The ceremony will be held just over a month after the MGM Grand Garden Arena hosts the 2022 Grammy Awards. The Grammys will air live on CBS Sunday, April 3 with comedian Trevor Noah hosting again. The show was originally scheduled for Jan. 31 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, but it was postponed due to the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

Since the Grammys were delayed, CBS also pushed back the 2022 CMT Music Awards, which will take place at Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium. The ceremony was scheduled for Monday, April 11. An extended “director’s cut” of the ceremony will air on CMT.

While the Grammys, CMT Music Awards and the Billboard Music Awards will all air on traditional television networks, the upcoming Academy of Country Music Awards will not. That ceremony, hosted by Dolly Parton from Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium, will become the first major U.S. awards show to stream exclusively. It will stream live on Amazon’s Prime Video platform on Monday, March 7 at 8 p.m. ET.