In a live broadcast from Los Angeles, Emmy winners Lisa Colón-Zayas and Jeff Hiller stepped to a podium and began reading names. The list was long, and as the morning wore on, a pattern emerged: the same few titles kept returning, their casts and crews accumulating nominations in clusters. Colón-Zayas, herself a supporting-actress winner for The Bear, and Hiller, a guest star in the newly anointed Widow’s Bay, were the messengers for an industry still recalibrating after years of streaming upheaval.

The medical drama The Pitt, now in its second season, led all contenders with 25 nominations, nearly double its tally from the previous year. The HBO Max series, which follows a single emergency-room shift in real time, secured nods for best drama series, lead actor Noah Wyle, and a remarkable 13 acting nominations overall, including four of the seven slots for supporting actress in a drama. Close behind was Hacks, whose fifth and final season earned 24 nominations, the most ever for a comedy. Jean Smart, already a four-time winner for her role as the imperious comedian Deborah Vance, is widely expected to claim a fifth statuette, while her co-star Hannah Einbinder and series co-creator Paul W. Downs also received nods. The comedy field was further jolted by Widow’s Bay, a horror-comedy from Apple TV+ that arrived quietly in late April and, propelled by enthusiastic word of mouth, collected 19 nominations, including best comedy series and a lead actor nod for Matthew Rhys.

Viewed from outside the United States, the nominations reflect a television landscape where the old distinctions between broadcast, cable, and streaming have all but dissolved. HBO Max led all platforms with 122 nominations, followed by Netflix with 111 and Apple TV+ with 87. Yet the global appetite for American series coexists with local production realities: the Canadian gay-hockey drama Heated Rivalry, despite a passionate fan campaign, was ineligible because it is an entirely Canadian production, though its co-lead Connor Storrie earned a guest-actor nomination for an appearance on Saturday Night Live. The nominations also carried a sombre note: Rob Reiner received a posthumous guest-actor nod for The Bear, months after he and his wife were killed by their son in a murder-suicide that shocked Hollywood.

The ceremony, set for 14 September at the Peacock Theater, will be hosted by Mariska Hargitay, the long-time star of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. It will be the first time in 15 years that a woman has emceed the Emmys alone. As the industry gathers, the night will be shaped by the tension between farewells and fresh arrivals: the final bow of Hacks, the continued dominance of The Pitt, and the sudden ascent of Widow’s Bay, a show that, in the words of one Australian critic, “slid into our lives in late April, quietly waiting for the audience to discover its unearthly delights.”