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If, in my early Emmy predictions, I’ve found one grand unifying theory so far, it’s one that relates to the Outstanding Animated Program and Outstanding Reality Competition Program (a new category I’m covering this year) and the newly-minted Outstanding Variety Series category. The theory: contenders in the former categories represent how a TV genre can live on via Emmys consideration. The latter? It shows how a TV genre can die by it.
All three categories have two or more contenders that are nominated annually, but while Outstanding Animated Program and Outstanding Reality Competition Program still feel like leveled playing fields that keep their respective genres healthy, a real lack of competition in the Outstanding Variety Series category has nearly dealt a death blow to late night TV.
Although Fox staples “The Simpsons” and “Bob’s Burgers” are nominated for Outstanding Animated Program every year (and have both won at least once in the past decade), they are not on some insane streak that has edged out new animated programs from becoming major Emmy contenders over the years as well. In fact, Adult Swim has past winners “Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal” and “Rick and Morty” back in the mix, though its top contender is likely newcomer “Haha, You Clowns,” which was recently nominated at the Annie Awards.
Netflix is also back as the returning champ, having won last year for the final season of “Arcane: League of Legends,” the first streaming series to win the Outstanding Animated Program Emmy. Its best bet this year is “Long Story Short,” a new critical darling from two-time Emmy nominee Raphael Bob-Waksberg, creator of “BoJack Horseman.”
And striking the balance between new and old is “South Park,” which finally returned to Comedy Central after a years-long hiatus, and remained as bold as ever.
That sort of Emmys season comeback mirrors the ambitions of fellow Paramount property “Survivor.” Like Animated Program, the Outstanding Reality Competition Program has contenders like “The Amazing Race” on CBS and “Top Chef” on Bravo, that have been nominated just about every single year since the category was established in 2003, but the winners year by year have been a steady succession of different programs.
While there are some outlier years, “The Amazing Race” came out the gate as the top dog until it started losing to “The Voice” on NBC in 2013. Then, shortly after it moved networks to VH1, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” started beating the two network shows. And now, within the past couple years, that show has been eclipsed by Peacock’s “The Traitors,” which is basically Reality TV All-Stars, even featuring past contestants from “The Amazing Race” and “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
Where “Survivor” fits in is that it has broken into the category eight times at different, sporadic points in history, from the very first year the category was established all the way to last year’s Primetime Emmys. The big question looming over the Outstanding Reality Competition Program Emmy race, even more so than whether or not newcomers like “America’s Culinary Cup” (CBS) or “Funny AF with Kevin Hart” (Netflix) can break into the category, is if the historic 50th season of “Survivor” will finally lead the O.G. reality competition phenomenon to an Emmy.
So even though the Animated and Reality Competition Program categories have their mainstays, no one show looms over all the others to where the winner is obvious each time. There are still big barriers of entry into both categories, but they have not been big enough to dissuade networks from producing and submitting new contenders into those categories each year.
Meanwhile, with the Outstanding Variety Series category, things have gotten so dire that it’s operating under new rules where every nominee could become a winner.
I’ve already written about how the Television Academy got back to a place where shows like “Saturday Night Live” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” are competing in the same Emmys category again, but the same shows kept winning what used to be Outstanding Talk Series and Outstanding Scripted Variety Series over and over again. It got to the point where networks stopped even trying to generate new competition. Now, the number of submissions for both categories has dwindled down to the same shows that get nominated over and over again.
Now we’re at a place where “Saturday Night Live” is basically the only sketch comedy show on TV, and the only network talk show to beat “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” has already been canceled, and will not be replaced.
This “everyone can be a winner” approach is a last ditch effort to convince networks to add some new contenders to the pool, though streamers like Netflix have already been burned so much by several attempts into the category, most recently with a show hosted by John Mulaney, that the strivers more likely to receive a payoff with be those coming from an even more burgeoning media space, like YouTube hit “Hot Ones.”
The documentary categories are a lot more cut and dry.
The Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series Emmy race is really thin this year, likely leading to a rematch between Netflix hit “Sean Combs: The Reckoning” and Apple TV’s “Mr. Scorsese.” The latter documentary won at the DGA Awards in February. Meanwhile, the Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special Emmy race is once again chock full of buzzy celebrity profiles. Mariska Hargitay’s “My Mom Jayne,” her extremely personal directorial debut, has the most momentum coming out of the winter awards season, but Netflix has a few formidable entries incoming, with the most notable being “Marty, Life is Short,” directed by Lawrence Kasdan.
See IndieWire’s full list of 2026 Emmy predictions, complete with frontrunners, contenders, and long shots on our website. As a reminder, my email is majones@indiewire.com if you’d like to share any feedback.
