The 78th Emmy Awards are set to begin Saturday at the Peacock Theater at L.A. LIVE, bringing three days of awards presentations to downtown Los Angeles. The initial ceremonies will cover 49 categories, including outstanding game show, game show host, and reality/competition program host.
This year marks a change in how the awards are structured. What were previously known as the Creative Arts Emmys, presented over two separate nights, have been rebranded as part of the unified "78th Emmy Awards." This shift, which also moved seven awards from what was known as the Primetime Emmy Awards to these earlier ceremonies, was prompted by the Television Academy in an effort to “freshen” the Primetime Emmy Awards broadcast. Saturday and Sunday’s ceremonies will be edited into a single broadcast that will air at 8 p.m. next Saturday on FXX and stream on Hulu the following day. The top 19 categories will be presented separately on September 14, also at the Peacock Theater, in a ceremony televised by NBC.
Among the awards presented this weekend, the outstanding game show category sees familiar contenders. "Jeopardy!" is seeking its seventh consecutive win and its 23rd overall since the show was revived in 1984. This category, which was historically part of the Daytime Emmy Awards until 2023, features an identical field of nominees to last year: "Celebrity Family Feud," "The Price is Right," "Wheel of Fortune," and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" are all looking to unseat the long-running champion.
The game show host category, however, introduces one new face. Martin Short received a nomination for his work on the first season of the latest revival of "Match Game" on ABC. He joins a lineup of seasoned hosts: Jimmy Kimmel of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," who won last year; Steve Harvey of "Celebrity Family Feud," a three-time winner; Ken Jennings of "Jeopardy!," a four-time nominee; and Colin Jost of "Pop Culture Jeopardy!," a two-time nominee. Notably, Elizabeth Banks, nominated last year for "Press Your Luck," did not receive a nomination this year.
In the realm of reality and competition programming, Alan Cumming is vying for his third consecutive victory as outstanding host for Peacock’s “The Traitors.” Cumming broke RuPaul Charles’ impressive streak of eight consecutive wins last year. This year's field of five nominees includes a newcomer: Ariana Madix of Peacock’s “Love Island USA.” Charles, an 11-time nominee for MTV’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” is also nominated, as are "Survivor" host Jeff Probst, who won the first four times the award was presented from 2008 to 2011, and Kristen Kish, a three-time nominee for Bravo’s “Top Chef.” The team from ABC’s “Shark Tank” missed a nomination after being nominated in back-to-back years and five of the previous six years.
A potential new record is also on the line. At 100 years old, British broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough has two nominations for best narrator, putting him in a position to become the oldest winner of a Primetime Emmy. He is nominated for “A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough” on Netflix and “Ocean with David Attenborough” on National Geographic. The current record holder is the late producer Norman Lear, who won a producing victory in 2019 at age 96. Attenborough had a chance to set this record last year but lost to former President Barack Obama. Attenborough, Obama, and actor Keith David currently share the record for most wins in the category with three each, though two of David’s victories were in the earlier category of outstanding voice-over performance, which split into outstanding narrator and outstanding character voice-over performance in 2014.
Saturday's awards will focus predominantly on reality, nonfiction, variety programming, and technical categories, while Sunday will see awards in 53 categories of scripted programming. These early ceremonies set the stage for the major broadcast next month, offering a glimpse at some of the industry's standout achievements from the past year.
