The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards air Monday, September 14, 2026, live on NBC and Peacock at 8 p.m. ET, hosted by Law & Order: SVU icon Mariska Hargitay. The nominations, announced July 8, set up a ceremony with real storylines: HBO’s medical drama The Pitt flooding the supporting categories, Apple TV surging with four drama series nominations, and a genuinely emotional late-night subplot — Stephen Colbert, whose Late Show ended in May, is publicly campaigning for his friend and rival Jimmy Kimmel under a new rule that could let them both win. Here’s your catch-up guide before TV’s biggest night.
Key Takeaways
- The 78th Primetime Emmys air live Monday, September 14, 2026 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock, hosted by Mariska Hargitay.
- HBO's The Pitt landed eight acting nominations, filling half the drama supporting actress field on its own.
- Apple TV took three of the eight Outstanding Drama Series slots — Pluribus, Slow Horses, and Your Friends & Neighbors.
- Variety series is now an "area award": every nominee that reaches 90 percent "yes" votes wins, so Colbert and Kimmel could both take one home.
The basics: when, where, how to watch
Per NBC, the ceremony airs live coast-to-coast on Monday, September 14 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT, simulcast on NBC and Peacock. Hargitay hosts for the first time. The nominations were revealed July 8 in a live stream hosted by Jeff Hiller and Liza Colón-Zayas.
(A disambiguation note, since the Emmy calendar confuses everyone: the Daytime Emmys are a separate ceremony — that one lands October 30 at the Hollywood Palladium. September 14 is the Primetime show.)
Drama: The Pitt shows up everywhere
The Outstanding Drama Series field, per NBC’s nominations list: The Diplomat (Netflix), The Gilded Age (HBO), A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (HBO), Paradise (Hulu), The Pitt (HBO), Pluribus (Apple TV), Slow Horses (Apple TV), and Your Friends & Neighbors (Apple TV).
Two patterns jump out. First, Apple TV’s arrival as a drama powerhouse — three of the eight nominees, plus Severance’s absence from the cycle making room for Pluribus, the new Rhea Seehorn vehicle. Second, The Pitt’s astonishing depth: the hospital drama placed four actresses (Taylor Dearden, Fiona Dourif, Katherine LaNasa, Sepideh Moafi) in the supporting actress field and four actors (Patrick Ball, Shawn Hatosy, Gerran Howell, and lead Noah Wyle in the lead category) across the acting races. When one cast occupies half of two categories, vote-splitting becomes the story.
The lead races are stacked: Zendaya (Euphoria), Carrie Coon (The Gilded Age), Keri Russell (The Diplomat), Rhea Seehorn (Pluribus), and newcomer Chase Infiniti (The Testaments) for the women; Sterling K. Brown (Paradise), Gary Oldman (Slow Horses), Mark Ruffalo (Task), Rufus Sewell (The Diplomat), and Noah Wyle (The Pitt) for the men.
Comedy: Hacks vs. The Bear, round four
The comedy field, per NBC: Abbott Elementary, The Bear, Hacks, Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Nobody Wants This, Only Murders in the Building, Shrinking, and Widow’s Bay.
The intrigue is in the newcomers. Margo’s Got Money Troubles (Apple TV) earned nominations for Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Nick Offerman; Widow’s Bay landed Matthew Rhys — who is pulling double duty with a limited-series nomination for The Beast in Me — plus Dale Dickey, Kate O’Flynn, and Stephen Root. The lead actress race pits Quinta Brunson, Ayo Edebiri, Fanning, Jean Smart, and, in the season’s best comeback story, Lisa Kudrow for The Comeback. Harrison Ford is back in the supporting field for Shrinking, still chasing his first Emmy.
Limited series: Beef returns, and DTF St. Louis crashes in
The limited/anthology race: All Her Fault (Peacock), The Beast in Me (Netflix), Beef (Netflix), DTF St. Louis (HBO), and Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette (FX), per NBC.
Beef’s second cycle brings Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan into leading roles with Youn Yuh-jung and Charles Melton in support. HBO’s DTF St. Louis stacked the supporting actor field with Jason Bateman, David Harbour, and Richard Jenkins — Bateman is also a lead nominee for Black Rabbit. And Sarah Snook (All Her Fault), Claire Danes (The Beast in Me), and Sally Field (Remarkably Bright Creatures) headline a loaded lead actress race.
The late-night story: “I think we can all agree Jimmy Kimmel deserves an Emmy”
The Outstanding Variety Series category — The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and SNL — carries the ceremony’s emotional weight, and USA Today lays out why.
Colbert’s Late Show ended in May, following CBS’s cancellation announcement the year before. On August 25, the day before final voting closed, Colbert posted an Instagram video filling out his own Emmy ballot — and endorsed his competitor. “I think we can all agree that Jimmy Kimmel deserves an Emmy,” he said. “I don’t care if you’ve never even seen his show: You know he deserves an Emmy.” It returned a 2025 favor, when Kimmel bought a Hollywood billboard reading “I’m voting for Stephen” — after which Colbert’s Late Show won the Emmy and a standing ovation.
Kimmel’s year has been eventful in its own right: USA Today notes he was temporarily pulled off the air in September 2025 over comments made after Charlie Kirk’s death, and has faced repeated calls from President Donald Trump for his firing — which his show turned into an Emmy campaign montage.
Here’s the twist that could make everyone happy: per USA Today, the Television Academy reclassified variety series as an “area award” this year. Voters answer yes/no on each nominee individually, and any nominee reaching 90 percent “yes” wins — meaning multiple winners are possible. Colbert’s farewell season and Kimmel’s defiant year could, in theory, both take home Emmys.
Reality and the rest
The reality competition field is Dancing With the Stars, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Survivor, Top Chef, and The Traitors, per NBC — with Peacock’s Traitors defending the momentum of a five-Emmy 2025 haul as part of NBCUniversal’s 20-award year (SNL alone took 12).
Two of those franchises have fresh seasons in play right around the ceremony: Dancing With the Stars returns for season 35 the night after the Emmys, and the Drag Race machine keeps rolling with season 8 of the UK edition.
What happens next
Winners will be revealed live on September 14, and the questions worth watching are specific: Does The Pitt’s cast cannibalize its own votes or power a sweep? Does Apple TV convert its nomination surge into a drama series win? Can Kudrow’s Comeback comeback beat the Hacks–Bear duopoly? And does the 90-percent rule produce television’s first double variety win — with Colbert taking a farewell Emmy alongside Kimmel? The ceremony airs on NBC and Peacock; expect the Colbert-Kimmel moment, whatever form it takes, to be the clip everyone shares Tuesday morning.
Quick poll
Which Emmys storyline are you tuning in for?
Worth knowing before you vote: under the Television Academy's new "area award" rule, every variety nominee that hits 90 percent "yes" votes wins, per USA Today.
FAQ
When are the 2026 Emmys? Monday, September 14, 2026, at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT, live on NBC and Peacock.
Who is hosting the 2026 Emmys? Mariska Hargitay of Law & Order: SVU, per NBC.
What shows lead the 2026 Emmy nominations? HBO’s The Pitt is the standout, with eight acting nominations across lead and supporting categories, while Apple TV placed four series in the drama race (Pluribus, Slow Horses, Your Friends & Neighbors) and comedy contender Margo’s Got Money Troubles.
Can both Colbert and Kimmel win the variety series Emmy? Yes — the category is now an “area award”: each nominee getting 90 percent “yes” votes wins, so multiple winners are possible, per USA Today. If none hits 90 percent, the highest percentage wins alone.
