Emmys 2026: Date, How to Watch, Nominees & the Winners Already Decided
- The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards are on Monday 14 September 2026 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, on NBC and streaming on Peacock, hosted by Mariska Hargitay.
- It is a Monday because NBC did not want to collide with Sunday Night Football.
- Emmys have already been handed out. The Creative Arts ceremony on 5-6 September presented 101 categories and is finished.
- Nobody has won a major category yet. All 19 televised categories are still open.
- The main show has 19 categories, down from 26 last year, after the Academy moved five off the broadcast in July.
- DTF St. Louis won four of those five moved categories, including both supporting acting awards for a limited series.
- Widow’s Bay leads the Creative Arts results with 8 wins; The Pitt leads nominations overall with 25, twelve of them still live.
- This page contains no odds and no picks. Not from a bookmaker, not from a prediction market, not from us.
Emmys have already been won this month. None of them at the ceremony you are thinking of.
The Creative Arts Emmys were presented over two nights on 5 and 6 September, 101 categories of them, and they are finished. The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards — the televised one, the one with the host and the red carpet — is on Monday 14 September 2026 and has not happened yet.
That gap is why searching for Emmy winners this week returns a long list of genuine winners from an awards show most people did not know had taken place.
When and how to watch
| Date | Monday 14 September 2026 |
| Venue | Peacock Theater, Downtown Los Angeles |
| Watch on | NBC, streaming on Peacock |
| Host | Mariska Hargitay |
| Categories | 19, down from 26 last year |
| Eligibility window | Programming aired 1 June 2025 – 31 May 2026 |
Why a Monday. The Emmys usually land on a Sunday. NBC has the broadcast this year and did not want it colliding with Sunday Night Football, so the ceremony moved to the Monday — something the network has done before on its turn in the rotation.
The host is a first in two ways. Mariska Hargitay is the first Emmys host who is not a comedian, comic performer or reality-television personality since Angela Lansbury in 1993, and the first woman to host since Jane Lynch in 2011. NBC considered names inside and outside NBCUniversal before choosing the lead of its own Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, in the network’s hundredth-anniversary year.
Michael J. Fox receives the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award, for his work on Parkinson’s disease research and advocacy.
The winners so far
These are final. Programmes with more than one Creative Arts Emmy:
| Wins | Programme | Network |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | Widow’s Bay | Apple TV |
| 7 | Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX Halftime Show | NBC |
| 6 | DTF St. Louis | HBO |
| 6 | The Traitors | Peacock |
| 5 | Spider-Noir | MGM+ / Prime Video |
| 5 | The Late Show with Stephen Colbert | CBS |
| 4 | Pluribus | Apple TV |
| 4 | The Muppet Show | Disney+ |
| 4 | The Pitt | HBO Max |
| 3 | Beef · Love on the Spectrum | Netflix |
| 3 | Margo’s Got Money Troubles · Palm Royale | Apple TV |
A detail worth noticing. My Mom Jayne: A Film by Mariska Hargitay won two Creative Arts Emmys this weekend. Its director hosts the main ceremony nine days later.
The five categories that were moved — and what happened in them
This is the part of the story that actually matters, and it is not really about who won.
In July, the Television Academy voted to move five categories off the live broadcast and onto the Creative Arts weekend:
- Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie
- Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie
- Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie
- Writing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie
- Writing for a Variety Series
Outstanding Variety Special (Live) went back to Creative Arts as well. The Academy’s chair framed it as freeing up the telecast for performances and comedy segments. The Directors Guild, the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA objected in a joint statement, saying the decision “devalues the contributions of the talented people” the Academy exists to honour.
Four of those five went to the same show.
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| Supporting Actor, Limited Series | David Harbour — DTF St. Louis (HBO) |
| Supporting Actress, Limited Series | Linda Cardellini — DTF St. Louis (HBO) |
| Directing, Limited Series | Steven Conrad — DTF St. Louis (HBO) |
| Writing, Limited Series | Steven Conrad — DTF St. Louis (HBO) |
| Writing, Variety Series | The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS) |
Both supporting-acting Emmys, the writing award and the directing award for a limited series, all to one programme, all handed out at a ceremony that was not televised. Whatever you make of the Academy’s reasoning, that is the concrete consequence of the change.
The major nominees
Outstanding Drama Series — The Diplomat (Netflix) · The Gilded Age (HBO) · A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (HBO) · Paradise (Hulu) · The Pitt (HBO Max) · Pluribus (Apple TV) · Slow Horses (Apple TV) · Your Friends & Neighbors (Apple TV)
Outstanding Comedy Series — Abbott Elementary (ABC) · The Bear (FX) · Hacks (HBO Max) · Margo’s Got Money Troubles (Apple TV) · Nobody Wants This (Netflix) · Only Murders in the Building (Hulu) · Shrinking (Apple TV) · Widow’s Bay (Apple TV)
Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series — All Her Fault (Peacock) · The Beast in Me (Netflix) · Beef (Netflix) · DTF St. Louis (HBO) · Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette (FX)
Outstanding Reality Competition Program — Dancing with the Stars (ABC) · RuPaul’s Drag Race (MTV) · Survivor (CBS) · Top Chef (Bravo) · The Traitors (Peacock)
Outstanding Variety Series — The Daily Show (Comedy Central) · Jimmy Kimmel Live! (ABC) · Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) · The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS) · Saturday Night Live (NBC)
The Pitt leads everything. Twenty-five nominations in total and twelve in major categories, more major nominations than any other programme has. It has four Creative Arts Emmys so far, so the bulk of its night is still ahead of it.
Two shows are running out of chances. Spider-Noir has eleven nominations and none in a major category; Fallout, The Oscars and Bad Bunny’s halftime show are in the same position. Their Emmy night was last weekend.
The network picture
HBO and HBO Max lead on both measures — 123 nominations overall, 35 in the televised categories.
The more interesting comparison is behind them. Netflix has 109 nominations and 16 major ones. Apple TV has 85 and 29. Twenty-four fewer nominations, nearly twice as many in the categories that will actually be handed out on television.
Why there is no chart of wins by network here. There should be one. We built it, checked it, and threw it away. Three published tables count the same 101 Creative Arts awards by network and give three different answers, and one of them is impossible on its own terms: it credits Apple TV with 17 wins when the multi-win programmes it itself lists add up to 18, before you count any programme that won once. Programme-level counts agree across every source, so those are the ones above. We would rather show you a chart we can stand behind than a tidier one we cannot.
What to watch for on the night
Not predictions. Things that are already true and that you can watch collide with the results.
- Whether DTF St. Louis converts. It is nominated for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series and it has already won the writing, directing and both supporting-acting awards in that field. Everything in its category except the top prize has gone its way.
- Whether The Pitt’s volume turns into anything. Twelve live major nominations is the largest block anyone has. It also has four Creative Arts Emmys already, including in a field where several of its own castmates are nominated against each other.
- The Traitors and The Late Show. Both won more Creative Arts Emmys than anything else in their categories, and both are nominated in the televised race — reality competition and variety series respectively.
- Whether Apple TV’s concentration pays. Its 29 major nominations are the second-most of any outlet despite a smaller overall footprint.
- The new Legacy Award, created in January 2026, is being presented for the first time — an annual award for programmes with a lasting cultural impact.
Why we are not giving you odds
Because the honest version of that section is worthless and the confident version is worse.
Bookmakers and prediction markets both publish Emmy prices, and quoting them would be an easy way to fill a paragraph. We do not publish odds on anything, and an awards show is not the exception — a number dressed up as a probability reads like information whether or not there is anything behind it.
What is genuinely predictive is thinner than the coverage suggests. Nomination counts measure how broadly a show was submitted and supported, not whether it wins a specific category. Creative Arts results tell you which shows the craft branches liked, and those branches are not the full voting body. Both are worth knowing. Neither is a forecast, and we have not turned them into one.
The bottom line
The Emmys are half done. One hundred and one categories were settled this past weekend, four of them awards that were on television last year. Nineteen remain, and they are on NBC and Peacock on Monday 14 September.
If you only watch the broadcast, you will see a shorter show than usual, and you will not see the ceremony where a limited series quietly swept its field.
Nominations announced 8 July 2026; Creative Arts Emmys presented 5-6 September 2026. Figures from the Television Academy and Wikipedia’s tables for the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards and 78th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. Win totals by network are omitted because the published sources contradict one another.