Steven Prusakowski
The Television Critics Association (TCA) announced today the nominees for the organization’s 42nd Annual TCA Awards, honoring standout series and stars from the 2025-2026 television season. Winners will be announced later this summer across TCA’s social media. TCA is a non-profit organization of more than 220 professional television journalists from across the United States and Canada. Nominations were determined solely by a vote of members, selected from shows distributed on major broadcast, cable, and streaming platforms from June 1, 2025 to May 31, 2026.
Today, TCA is also announcing that it is expanding its categories to 14 with the additions of Outstanding Achievement in Animation, recognizing the best in new or returning animated series, and Outstanding Achievement in International Series, recognizing the best overall series produced by a country outside the United States where the predominant language spoken on screen is not English.
“These new categories celebrate the ways TV continues to evolve,” TCA Board director Liz Shannon Miller, Senior Entertainment Editor at Consequence, said, “especially as standout new series emerge from outside the mainstream.”
The Simpsons, South Park, and Invincible are among the nominees for TCA’s inaugural Outstanding Achievement in Animation award, while the first contenders for Outstanding International Series include Squid Game, The Boyfriend, and The House of the Spirits.
While the TCA Awards in recent years have seen one program clearly rise above the pack to lead in nominations, 2026 has three series firmly placed at the top with five nominations each to their credit. These include Crave/HBO Max’s ice hockey romance Heated Rivalry, HBO Max’s corporate drama Industry, and Apple TV’s genre-bending Widow’s Bay, which will face off against each other in the coveted Program of the Year category.
Claiming the TCA’s top prize won’t be easy, however, as they’ll have to unseat last year’s winner, HBO Max’s The Pitt, as well as best the farewell runs of CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, HBO Max’s Hacks and The Comeback, plus Apple TV’s Shrinking and Pluribus.
Heated Rivalry and Industry lock horns in other categories, most notably Outstanding Achievement in Drama, which also includes 2025 winner The Pitt, HBO Max’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (based on a George R. R. Martin fantasy novella), Pluribus, and Hulu’s sci-fi thriller Paradise, among others, and Individual Achievement in Drama, where Industry stars Marisa Abela, Myha’la, and Ken Leung will face off against Heated Rivalry leads Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams to potentially de-throne 2025 winner Noah Wyle in a category that also includes Sterling K. Brown, Rhea Seehorn, David Harbour, and Katherine LaNasa.
Widow’s Bay will challenge Heated Rivalry for Outstanding New Program, a category that also includes, among others, FX’s ambitious Alien: Earth, NBC’s sports mockumentary The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and Apple TV’s timely dramedy Margo’s Got Money Troubles.
Other highlights include a showdown between late-night titans John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel, and Seth Meyers in Outstanding Achievement in Variety, Talk, or Sketch; an Outstanding Achievement in News and Information race featuring mainstays 60 Minutes and Frontline, as well as Mr. Scorsese, Marty, Life Is Short, and Have I Got News For You; and an eclectic Outstanding Achievement in Reality roster that sees romance and competition collide, as back-to-back champ The Traitors goes for the three-peat against Love on the Spectrum, Survivor, Couples Therapy, and Top Chef, among others.
“My fellow TCA members’ nominations illustrate a wide range of excellent television and the artists who create it. Even in this period of contraction, there’s so much outstanding art being created and delivered to our homes, and we’re thrilled to celebrate it,” said TCA President Andy Dehnart, creator of reality blurred and host of the podcast Made from Humans: How Reality Becomes TV. “The selections you see here are the result of a year of members watching, reporting, and reviewing, in addition to weeks of spirited conversation in our community, both virtually and in-person at the ATX TV Festival. We’re thrilled to celebrate these artists and their outstanding art with the TCA Awards.”
[Source: TCA Press Release]
One of the TCA voting members is yours truly. I am honored to discuss, debate, and vote amongst my peers and to see such an amazing list of nominees across categories. While not all the people and series I nominated made it into the mix, a good number of them did. Congrats to all nominees.
– Steven Prusakowski
The 2026 TCA AWARDS Nominees
Program of the Year
The Comeback (HBO)
Hacks (HBO Max)
Heated Rivalry (Crave/HBO Max)
Industry (HBO)
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (CBS)
The Pitt (HBO Max)
Pluribus (Apple TV)
Shrinking (Apple TV)
Widow’s Bay (Apple TV)
Outstanding Achievement in Comedy
Abbott Elementary (ABC)
The Comeback
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins (NBC)
Hacks
The Lowdown (FX)
Margo’s Got Money Troubles (Apple TV)
Shrinking
Widow’s Bay
Outstanding Achievement in Drama
The Gilded Age (HBO)
Heated Rivalry
Industry
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (HBO)
Paradise (Hulu)
The Pitt
Pluribus
Task (HBO)
Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries or Specials
All Her Fault (Peacock)
The Beast in Me (Netflix)
Beef (Netflix)
Death by Lightning (Netflix)
DTF St. Louis (HBO)
Half Man (HBO)
Lord of the Flies (Netflix)
Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette (FX)
Outstanding New Program
Alien: Earth (FX)
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins
Heated Rivalry
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
The Lowdown
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
Pluribus
Widow’s Bay
Individual Achievement in Comedy
Hannah Einbinder, Hacks
Elle Fanning, Margo’s Got Money Troubles
Harrison Ford, Shrinking
Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback
Kate O’Flynn, Widow’s Bay
Matthew Rhys, Widow’s Bay
Jean Smart, Hacks
Tim Robinson, The Chair Company (HBO)
Individual Achievement in Drama
Marisa Abela, Industry
Sterling K. Brown, Paradise
David Harbour, DTF St. Louis
Katherine LaNasa, The Pitt
Ken Leung, Industry
Myha’la, Industry
Rhea Seehorn, Pluribus
Connor Storrie, Heated Rivalry
Hudson Williams, Heated Rivalry
Noah Wyle, The Pitt
Outstanding Achievement in News and Information
60 Minutes (CBS)
The American Revolution (PBS)
CBS This Morning (CBS)
Disneyland Handcrafted (Disney+)
Frontline (PBS)
Have I Got News for You (CNN)
Marty, Life Is Short (Netflix)
Mr. Scorsese (Apple TV)
Outstanding Achievement in Talk, Variety or Sketch
The Daily Show (Comedy Central)
Jimmy Kimmel Live! (ABC)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Late Night with Seth Meyers (NBC)
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
The Muppet Show (ABC/Disney+)
Saturday Night Live (NBC)
Outstanding Achievement in Reality
Couples Therapy (Paramount+)
Finding Mr. Christmas (Hallmark)
The Great British Baking Show (Netflix)
Love on the Spectrum (Netflix)
RuPaul’s Drag Race (MTV)
Survivor (CBS)
Top Chef (Bravo)
The Traitors (Peacock)
Outstanding Achievement in Family Programming
Disney Twisted-Wonderland: The Animation (Disney+)
Electric Bloom (Disney+/Disney Channel)
Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Disney+/Hulu)
Phineas and Ferb (Disney+/Disney Channel)
Stranger Things: Tales from ‘85 (Netflix)
Vampirina: Teenage Vampire (Disney+/Disney Channel)
Wizards Beyond Waverly Place (Disney+/Disney Channel(
WondLa (Apple TV)
Outstanding Achievement in Children’s Programming
Carl the Collector (PBS Kids)
The First Snow of Fraggle Rock (Apple TV)
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse+ (Disney+/Disney Jr.)
Phoebe & Jay (PBS Kids)
Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical (Apple TV)
Sofia the First: Royal Magic (Disney+/Disney Jr.)
Weather Hunters (PBS Kids)
The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball (Hulu)
Outstanding Achievement in Animation
Bob’s Burgers (Fox)
Haunted Hotel (Netflix)
Invincible (Prime Video)
King of the Hill (Hulu)
Long Story Short (Netflix)
The Simpsons (Fox)
South Park (Comedy Central)
Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord (Disney+)
Women Wearing Shoulder Pads (Adult Swim)
Outstanding International Series
The Boyfriend (Netflix)
Crime Scene Zero (Netflix)
Drops of God (Apple TV)
The House of the Spirits (Prime Video)
Last Samurai Standing (Netflix)
Squid Game (Netflix)
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