78th Emmy Awards 2026: September 14 on NBC, and the Categories Moved Off the Broadcast

The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards are held Monday, September 14, 2026 at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles, airing live on NBC and streaming on Peacock. Mariska Hargitay, long the star and an executive producer of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, hosts. Her selection was noted as the first time a woman has hosted the Emmys since Jane Lynch in 2011.^[7]

Nominations were announced on July 8, 2026 at the Television Academy's Wolf Theatre in North Hollywood. The Pitt led the field with 25 nominations and Hacks followed with 24. The nomination announcement and the host confirmation landed the same day, compressing what in prior years had been separate news beats.^[8]

The Television Academy set the competition rules in January 2026. Alongside procedural adjustments, the Academy introduced the Legacy Award, described as recognizing a program with profound and lasting impact on audiences and sustained relevance to society, culture and the industry, and characterized in coverage as the first new major Emmy in nearly two decades.^[1]

The January 2026 rules announcement renamed Outstanding Television Movie to Outstanding Movie, the Academy's stated reasoning being that the older name no longer reflected how cinematic content is made and distributed across broadcast and streaming. Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program was split into two separate awards, one for nonfiction and one for reality.^[1][3]

Short Form categories were restructured to track original and derivative series as distinct genres with proportional nominations and at least one nomination guaranteed per genre. Music eligibility widened so that reality programs carrying original dramatic scores can compete for composition awards, and the Main Title Theme category was expanded to admit main-on-end themes that appear after the final act rather than at the top of an episode.^[1]

The Academy also added language on artificial intelligence, reserving the right to inquire about AI use in submissions while stating that recognition remains centered on human storytelling regardless of the tools used to bring it to life. Several craft categories broadened the professional titles eligible to be credited, including associate casting director on scripted series, key costumer, and line producer in reality.^[1]

The scheduling detail most likely to catch viewers is that the Creative Arts Emmys, held September 5 and September 6, were not broadcast as they happened. Both nights were edited into a single program that aired September 12 on FXX at 8 p.m. ET/PT, with streaming on Hulu the following day. A viewer who set a reminder for the ceremony dates found nothing airing; the ceremony dates and the broadcast date are eight and six days apart respectively.^[6]

That gap acquired new weight in 2026 because the Television Academy moved several categories off the live NBC telecast and into those Creative Arts nights. Reporting identifies the affected awards as Writing for a Variety Series, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie, Directing and Writing for a Limited Series or Movie, and Variety Special (Live). The main broadcast was accordingly reduced from 26 presented categories to 19.^[5]

The move drew objection from Hollywood guilds, who characterized it as devaluing the work of the nominees affected. The Academy's position, as reported, was that the categories are not eliminated and their winners still receive Emmys. The practical upshot for anyone tracking a specific nominee is that the result may have been decided in early September and revealed on a tape-delayed FXX broadcast, rather than during the September 14 live show where the same category would have been announced in previous years.^[3][4][5]

This is the part most coverage of the category shake-up leaves hanging. The categories pulled off the NBC telecast were not postponed — they were awarded at the Creative Arts ceremonies on September 5 and 6, 2026, more than a week before the main show. So by the time the September 14 broadcast airs, those winners are already known.^[10][11]

Winners in the six moved categories: Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie — David Harbour (*DTF St. Louis*); Supporting Actress — Linda Cardellini (*DTF St. Louis*); Directing and Writing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie — both *DTF St. Louis*, Steven Conrad; Writing for a Variety Series — *The Late Show With Stephen Colbert*; Variety Special (Live) — *The Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show Starring Bad Bunny*.^[11][12]

The Creative Arts ceremonies are not carried live. The Television Academy lists the edited broadcast on FXX at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT, with streaming on Hulu starting September 13, 2026 — the day before the main NBC ceremony.^[10]

So there are effectively three separate viewing dates: the Creative Arts nights themselves (Sept. 5-6, not televised live), the FXX edit, and the September 14 NBC telecast. Looking only at September 14 means missing the categories this article is about.^[6][10]

The Television Academy no longer presents these ceremonies under the Creative Arts name alone. Its own page heads the section "78th Emmy Awards (formerly Creative Arts Emmy Awards)," and the official press releases describe the September 5 and 6 events as "night one" and "night two of the 78th Emmy Awards." Under the current official usage, the September 14 NBC telecast is not a separate award show from them; it is the concluding night of the same 78th Emmys.^[10][13][14]

This matters in practice because most coverage, listings and search queries still say "Creative Arts Emmys." Both labels point to the same ceremonies, so a search using the older name is not wrong — but when comparing an official Academy page against a news article, the two may be describing the same event with different names.^[13][14]

The Academy published its own winners announcements on September 5 and September 6, 2026, rather than leaving the record to trade coverage. Both releases state that the ceremonies took place at the Peacock Theater at L.A. LIVE in downtown Los Angeles. Night one recognized variety, reality and nonfiction categories including cinematography, costumes, casting, editing and hosting; night two covered animation, drama, comedy and anthology series.^[13][14]

The night two release also records something the category-cut coverage did not: the Television Academy presented the inaugural Legacy Award to I Love Lucy, citing its profound and generational impact on television. That award is new, so it has no prior recipient to compare against.^[14]