The AVN Awards are movie awards sponsored and presented by the American adult video industry trade magazine AVN (Adult Video News) to honor exceptional performance in various aspects of the creation and marketing of American pornographic movies. They are the "Oscars" of porn. The AVN Awards comprise nearly 100 categories, some of which are analogous to industry awards offered in other film and video genres, and others that are specific to pornographic film and video.
AVN sponsored the first AVN Awards ceremony in February 1984. The award ceremony occurs in early January during the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 2008 AVN Awards will air on Showtime on March 14, 2008 at 12am ET/PT .
Awards for gay adult video were a part of the AVN awards from the 1986 ceremony through the 1998 ceremony. The increasing number of categories made the show unwieldy and for the 1999 ceremony AVN Magazine began hosting the GayVN Awards, an annual adult movie award event for gay adult video.
