Netflix Australian drama series Heartbreak High has taken home the International Emmy for Best Kids: Live-Action, at the International Emmy Awards held on Monday evening (EST) at the New York Hilton.
The reboot of the original, which premiered in late 2022, has earned a worldwide following, introducing a global audience to eshays and bin chickens and earning plaudits for its honest depiction of what today’s Aussie teens face.
The first season (produced by Fremantle, Newbe and Netflix) broke records. Following its release, it spent five weeks in Australia’s top 10 TV shows on Netflix and three weeks in global top 10 TV shows on Netflix (hitting #6, #5, #8 and amassing over 42.6M hours viewed in the three weeks).
It reached the ‘top 10 shows’ spot in more than 43 countries around the world and absolutely popped off on TikTok where #heartbreakhigh amassed over 700m views.
Read: Heartbreak High, Netflix, review: showing respect, solidarity and consent
The Emmy win is the latest in a slew of awards for the Aussie production including Outstanding Supporting Actor (Thomas Weatherall) at the 2023 Logie Awards and 2022 AACTA for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama (Thomas Weatherall), Best Screenplay in Television and Best Costume Design in Television, and won three Audience Choice Awards for Best TV Show, Best Actor (Bryn Chapman-Parish), and Best Actress (Chloe Hayden).
Season 2 of Heartbreak High will stream on Netflix in 2024. According to its producers:
The flies are buzzing, the ibis are raiding the bins, and the sun shines down on our favourite ‘lowest ranking school in the district’ – Hartley High. Students stream through the gates and all our heroes are back for a second term – threesomes, chlamydia and burning cars a distant memory – it seems possible that everyone’s done a bit of growing up over the Term 1 holidays …
The full list of nominees and winners can be found on the International Emmy Awards website.