'The Traitors' and 'The Masked Singer' among 2026 Emmy juried winners

The Traitors, The Masked Singer and Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal are among the early winners at the 78th Emmy Awards after the Television Academy announced this year’s honorees in juried categories.

Unlike competitive Emmy categories, juried awards do not have traditional nominees. Entries are reviewed by panels of industry professionals from the relevant peer groups, who determine whether an Emmy should be awarded based on the work’s merits. A category can have multiple winners or no winner.

The Masked Singer and Peacock’s The Traitors were recognised in the Outstanding Costumes for Variety, Nonfiction or Reality Programming category. The Masked Singer won for its premiere episode, while The Traitors was recognised for its “The Black Banquet” episode.

In the Outstanding Innovation in Emerging Media Programming category, Crafting Crimes, created for Meta Quest, received an Emmy.

The animation juried awards include two honours for Adult Swim’s Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal. David Krentz received the award for storyboard work on “Kingdom of Sorrow,” while Scott Wills was recognised for art direction on “Vengeance of Death.”

Other individual achievement in animation winners include Uzoma Dunkwu for character design on Disney+’s Eyes of Wakanda, Howard Chen for background design on Prime Video’s The Mighty Nein and Takashi Okazaki for character design on Star Wars: Visions.

No Emmy was awarded this year for Outstanding Motion Design.

The juried Emmy awards will be presented during ceremonies scheduled for Sept. 5 and 6. The two ceremonies will later be edited together and broadcast on FXX on Sept. 12 at 8 p.m. ET.