On July 8, the TV Academy will announce the nominations for the upcoming 78th Emmy Awards, but those totals will have a huge asterisk on them — because a week later, the Academy will be announcing the nominations in nine additional categories.
On July 15, we’ll learn the nominees for outstanding cinematography, music composition, and sound editing, which are being determined by peer-group screening panels.
Those decisions will impact not only vote totals for those series, along with their studios and networks, but also potentially which series can claim the crown of most-nominated. So the likes of top contenders Pluribus, The Pitt, and Beef will have to wait a week to find out just how many Emmy nominations they actually got.
While this information was included in the rulebook that was unveiled back in December and has been updated since (“Nominees will be announced live on July 8, 2026, with additional nominations announced for peer group specific top ten round panels on July 15”), the specific categories being announced in the second wave have changed — and the reality of how to manage this news is only now just settling in for awards strategists around town, and it’s causing a fair bit of churn.
First of all, whatever totals are announced on July 8 are going to ultimately be incomplete, and will have to be updated on July 15, when the nine peer-group categories are revealed. That means new congratulatory ad materials will have to be created for the relevant series — and the studios will have to absorb the associated costs.
Then there’s the matter of the nominees themselves. “These are not insignificant categories,” one awards strategist told Gold Derby. “The Academy made a decision that marginalizes the accomplishments of craftsmen by moving them off the date where everyone gets to celebrate.”
Others are wondering why these categories in particular are being judged by peer-group voting. “Why do the governors of these peer groups need supervised filtration?” said another strategist. “If they need this check and balance, why don’t the others?”
Which raises the question of why the announcements were split in the first place.
“The nominations announcement was moved earlier in the year to provide more time to our partners for planning and promotional purposes now that official second round FYC events can take place during Televerse,” said a Television Academy spokesperson in a statement provided to Gold Derby exclusively. “A few categories that have a second round of voting prior to determination of nominations will not be available until the following week. We are confident the press can glean trends on top performing shows and networks from the tally of nominations on July 8 and can update accordingly with the additional categories on July 15.”
Televerse, the organization’s Phase 2 FYC event, will be held this year Aug. 14-16, recently announced its first wave of programming, which includes Band of Brothers and Star Trek anniversaries.
The latest confirmed list of categories to be announced on July 15 are:
Cinematography — Half-Hour Series
Cinematography — One-Hour Series
Cinematography — Limited Series
Music Composition — Series
Music Composition — Limited Series
Music Composition — Nonfiction/Reality
Sound Editing — Half-Hour Series
Sound Editing — One-Hour Series
Sound Editing — Limited Series
All nonfiction/reality/documentary categories — except the music composition category — will be announced July 8.
