Next year's Academy of Country Music Awards will stream live on Amazon.com Inc's Prime Video, the first major awards show to move exclusively online, organizers said on Thursday.

The awards, first held in 1966, are the longest-running honors in country music and had been broadcast live in the United States on the CBS broadcast channel. CBS decided to instead air the CMT Music Awards, country music honors voted on by fans, in April 2022.

That opened an opportunity for Amazon, which has been buying rights to live events, including the NFL's "Thursday Night Football," to draw more viewers to Prime Video.

Audiences for live events including the Oscars, Emmys and Olympics have been declining on traditional television as streaming video has exploded.

The date and location for the 2022 Country Music Awards have not yet been announced. For the past two years, the show has been held at multiple sites around Nashville, country music's hometown, rather than at a single grand venue in Las Vegas as in previous years, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

At the 56th Academy of Country Music awards on April 18, Luke Bryan was named Entertainer of the Year, with Maren Morris and Thomas Rhett winning Female and Male Artist of the Year.  

(With input from Reuters)

(Cover: Blake Shelton performs at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., April 17, 2021, for a taped appearance on the 56th Academy of Country Music Awards show to be aired on April 18, 2021. /Reuters)