The People's Choice Awards is an American awards show, recognizing people in entertainment, voted online by the fans and general public. The show has been held annually since 1975, with the winners originally determined using Gallup Polls until a switch to online voting in 2005.

The awards were created by Bob Stivers, who produced the first show in 1975. The first awards recognized The Sting as Favorite Picture of 1974, Barbra Streisand as the year's Favorite Film Actress, and John Wayne as its Favorite Film Actor. So far, Ellen DeGeneres and Taylor Swift are the most awarded people, with a total of 20 awards each.

In 1982, Stivers sold the People's Choice Awards to Procter & Gamble Productions (P&G); under P&G, the ceremony was broadcast by CBS, and Procter & Gamble's brands held exclusive national advertising time across the entire telecast.

In April 2017, the E! network announced that they had acquired the People's Choice Awards. The ceremony was initially shifted from a January scheduling to November to reduce its proximity to the busier months of awards season, but this was reverted for 2024 with a move to February. Since 2021, the ceremony has aired on E!'s sister broadcast network NBC. In September 2023, NBC also began to host the People's Choice Country Awards as a spin-off.

The award categories have varied over the years. For example, the 16th People's Choice Awards had categories including Favorite All-Around Movie (Batman), and both a Favorite Movie Actor (Tom Cruise) and a World Favorite Movie Actor (Dustin Hoffman). At the 23rd People's Choice Awards, Rob Reiner was named the People's Choice Awards Honoree. The 32nd People's Choice Awards (broadcast in January 2006) included categories such as Favorite On-Screen Match-Up (Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson in Wedding Crashers), Favorite Leading Lady (Reese Witherspoon), Favorite Tour (U2), and an award named after a Procter & Gamble brand: Nice 'n Easy Fans Favorite Hair (Faith Hill). In 2008, the People's Choice Awards introduced a new category: Favorite Sci-Fi Show. The nominees were Stargate Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, and Doctor Who. Stargate Atlantis was the first recipient of the award.

In the 20th century, the awards were based on results from Gallup polls. Each year, Gallup took a survey of different categories for favorite actor, actress, movie, artist, television program or group. The scope was unlimited—the public could choose whomever or whatever it liked. The results of the annual survey were announced in the form of the People's Choice Awards. Since polls have margins of error, many years' awards have had ties in at least one category, when Gallup declared that the voting was so close that a single winner could not be chosen. For instance, in 2003, both Spider-Man and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring were recognized as Favorite Motion Picture.

The winners of the 31st People's Choice Awards (on January 9, 2005) were decided by online voting rather than Gallup polls. The nominees submitted for Internet voting were selected using an unpublished process involving editors at Entertainment Weekly, the show's production team and a panel of pop culture fans.

The nominees for the 32nd People's Choice Awards were determined by the web research company Knowledge Networks, which took a nationally representative sample of men and women ages 18 to 54, with and without Internet access, to come up with the nominees. After being presented with a list of candidates determined by national ratings averages, box office grosses and album sales, they had the option to write in their favorites. Knowledge Networks recruits its panel by using a RDD phone recruitment method and provides a web TV and Internet access to households without Internet access enabling them to infer back to the entire population.