Television Academy to Reveal Emmy Late-Night and Reality Nominations Earlier Than Other Categories on NBC’s “Today”

The Television Academy will reveal nominations for two Emmy categories earlier than the rest of the Primetime Emmy lineup for 2026, according to plans announced for the nomination morning show. The Academy will unveil the nominees for Outstanding Variety Series and Outstanding Reality Competition Program before the broader batch of nomination announcements, continuing a staggered schedule for categories that commonly reflect broadcast entertainment.

In a move the Academy has repeated for late-night and reality programming, the nominees for the two categories will be disclosed on NBC’s “Today.” Deadline reported that the segment will run between 4:45 a.m. PT and 5:20 a.m. PT.

Deadline said the timetable follows CBS’ approach last year, when the Paramount-owned network revealed nominations for the same type of early categories during its morning programming. The Academy’s new schedule creates what Deadline described as a roughly three-hour gap between the first nominations and the remainder of the Emmy nominations.

After the early-morning “Today” segment, the remaining Primetime Emmy nominations will be revealed at 8:30 a.m. PT. Deadline reported that the later reveal will be led by Liza Colón-Zayas, whose work appears in the Emmy-eligible ecosystem highlighted by the Academy, and Jeff Hiller, who was named by Deadline as one of the presenters for the broader nomination announcement.

The delayed portion of the nomination morning is designed to follow the early broadcast of late-night and reality category nominees, leaving those categories to be heard first by viewers tuning in for the earliest portion of the program. Deadline did not indicate any additional changes to the submission rules or nomination criteria in connection with the schedule shift, focusing instead on the altered order of disclosure.

For nominees, networks, and production teams, the earlier reveal affects when their titles and talent will be publicly confirmed and when press cycles typically begin. The split schedule also concentrates attention on broadcast-friendly awards categories sooner than the rest of the nominations, potentially drawing earlier audience engagement from viewers following the awards season on major morning television.

The nomination reveal timing is the latest sign that Emmy announcements are increasingly handled through coordinated broadcast segments, rather than a single unified release, as the industry and viewers increasingly rely on morning media platforms for major entertainment announcements.