2026 Creative Arts Emmy Winners: Bad Bunny Halftime Show Leads Night One With Seven Awards

The 2026 Creative Arts Emmy winners began taking shape Saturday, September 5, with Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show emerging as the biggest winner of the first night. The Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show Starring Bad Bunny collected seven awards as the Television Academy opened the 78th Emmy Awards at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles.

According to the Television Academy’s official Night One recap, the halftime production led all programs Saturday, followed by Peacock’s The Traitors with six awards and CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert with five. The first ceremony focused heavily on variety, reality and nonfiction programming.

2026 Creative Arts Emmy winners put Bad Bunny on top

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime production won across a wide range of live-production categories, including Outstanding Variety Special (Live), music direction, choreography, sound mixing, lighting design, technical direction and camerawork, and directing for a variety special.

The seven-award sweep reflects how broadly the halftime show was recognized beyond Bad Bunny’s performance itself. The production required live music, staging, cameras, choreography and technical execution to work simultaneously during one of television’s most closely watched live events.

The Academy’s official winners announcement confirmed that Night One honored achievements in areas including cinematography, costumes, casting, editing, hosting and other variety, reality and nonfiction categories.

The Traitors finished immediately behind the halftime show with six wins. Among them was another Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality Competition Program Emmy for Alan Cumming, extending the Peacock competition series’ awards momentum.

Stephen Colbert’s Late Show wins five in its final season

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert also had a significant night, taking home five Emmys during its final season. The result gave the CBS late-night program one of the largest totals of Saturday’s ceremony.

The Disney+ special The Muppet Show collected four awards, while Netflix’s Love on the Spectrum won three. The nonfiction field also produced multiple winners, including National Geographic’s Ocean with David Attenborough.

The Hollywood Reporter independently documented the Night One winners, while Deadline’s 2026 Emmy winners coverage tracked the results as the awards weekend began.

Mariska Hargitay wins two Emmys for My Mom Jayne

Mariska Hargitay entered the Emmy weekend not only as the host of the September 14 primetime ceremony but also as a nominee for her HBO documentary My Mom Jayne: A Film by Mariska Hargitay.

She left Saturday’s ceremony with two awards. The documentary won Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, while Hargitay received the directing Emmy for a documentary or nonfiction program.

The film explores the life of her mother, actress Jayne Mansfield, giving Hargitay a very different Emmy achievement from the acting award she previously received for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

The Television Academy noted that the documentary wins came 20 years after Hargitay’s earlier Emmy recognition, creating one of the night’s more personal awards-story arcs.

The Emmys continue across two more ceremonies

Saturday represented only the first portion of this year’s Emmy celebration. A second ceremony is scheduled for September 6, followed by the main televised Emmy Awards on September 14.

The September 6 program will also include the Television Academy’s first Legacy Award presentation to the landmark sitcom I Love Lucy, which The Showbiz Journal previously reported will become the inaugural recipient of the new honor during its 75th anniversary year.

The two weekend ceremonies will later be edited into a Creative Arts broadcast airing September 12 on FXX, with streaming availability on Hulu the following day. The main September 14 ceremony will air live on NBC and stream on Peacock.

Bad Bunny enters Emmy weekend with the night’s largest haul

The first round of results gives the 2026 Emmys an unusually strong connection between television and music. Bad Bunny’s halftime performance was created for a sporting event, but its seven wins came for the television craft required to transform that live performance into a major broadcast production.

The result also places the halftime show ahead of several established reality, documentary and late-night programs after the opening ceremony, although additional awards across drama, comedy and limited-series categories are still to come.

For now, the first group of 2026 Creative Arts Emmy winners has a clear leader: the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show Starring Bad Bunny, with seven trophies from Night One of the 78th Emmy Awards.