TV Academy President Maury McIntyre Talks Emmy Noms, Legacy Award, How Multiple Late-Night Shows Might Win & A Pending TV Rights Deal

Maury McIntyre Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images The nominations for the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards are out and Television Academy president and CEO Maury McIntyre is excited ahead of the show in September. It was a big day for shows such as Hacks, The Pitt, Widow’s Bay, Pluribus and Beef, and McIntyre was pleased with the variety of nominations. Related Stories News Emmy Nominations 2026: The Complete List News Emmys Snub Taylor Sheridan Shows, ‘Half Man’, ‘Hot Ones’ In Nominations; Riz Ahmed & YouTube’s ‘Subway Takes’ Surprise In an interview with Deadline, McIntyre discussed host Mariska Hargitay, its upcoming Legacy Award, what will happen if more than one late-night host wins on the night, how the Emmys are increasingly including YouTube creators in its categories, where the Academy is in terms of its next TV rights deal and whether Widow’s Bay is really a comedy.

DEADLINE: What are your takeaways from the Emmy nominations this morning? Watch on Deadline MAURY MCINTYRE: We’re always excited about nominations morning. It’s always a thrill to be able to recognize the great work that’s gone on over the course of the past year; we always are surprised by a lot of the recognition, and we’re also happy when we see things that people are really beloved.

I think one of the things that we were really happy with this year was just kind of the real variety in the storytelling, when you look at kind of the programs and just the breadth of the programs that are nominated, you’ve got your period pieces, you’ve got your fantasy pieces, you get your thrillers, you’ve got your heartwarming little intimate family-type shows, so it’s really interesting to see that television’s being made about lots of different subjects and excellence in pretty much all of it. DEADLINE: There were plenty of nominations for new shows like Widow’s Bay, hit shows ending like Hacks and returners like The Pitt. MCINTYRE: I think it’s great that you always do have the newcomers coming in, and some of them really hit it big, Pluribus and Widow’s Bay are certainly huge coming out.

You’ve got some of the ones that have been around for a while, coming back. I think you can see that on the reality competition side, where Dancing with the Stars had a really big season this year and came back after 10 years, which is fantastic to see. DEADLINE: Is Widow’s Bay a comedy?

You got asked that question for years about The Bear. MCINTYRE: We certainly have that conversation a lot. I thought Widow’s Bay was hysterical.

I think that comedy is always going to be a hard one. I think that in many ways we try to defer to the creator, because you know the creator has created something, and they feel that they know what they have created. Certainly, I’m not one that wants to go to a writer and tell them it wasn’t funny, so I think that in that regard we are generally going to say, ‘If you feel you wrote a comedy, we’re going to trust this comedy, and then trust that the viewers and the voters are then going to decide on that’.

If they vote for it in the comedy category, well, then they must have thought it was a comedy too. On Widow’s Bay, I actually haven’t heard anyone complain to me about that one, just because I think it is so humorous on so many levels, even with the dark horror. Horror is a really great one to laugh at.

I think Sam Raimi found that with Evil Dead. RELATED: ‘Widow’s Bay’ Enters The Emmy Conversation With 19 Nominations DEADLINE: Mariska Hargitay is hosting this year’s Emmys and she’s the first woman to do so in 15 years. MCINTYRE: We were so thrilled, actually, when NBC came to us with Mariska.

A lot of people kind of had the same reaction I think we did at first, that it was an interesting choice, because everyone’s expecting it to be a comedian or a late-night host or something like that. But she is so loved, both by her audience and fans, and the entire community. Most of those people who just got a nomination today have probably been arrested by her at some point on that show.

The outpouring of those friendships on social media yesterday, you could see how many people were excited for her. She’s had such a great year, too. I mean, she just did a Broadway debut, taking over for Daniel Radcliffe.

She herself is nominated at least three times this year [for] her documentary [My Mom Jayne]. It’s a big year for her, and we’re really excited about. 15 years we haven’t had a woman and we needed that desperately.

I was talking about this for years. I don’t think anyone knows what this show is going to be, and that to me is exciting. You get a stand-up comedian, you’re going to go, okay, they’re going to do a bit, and then we’ll do some other stuff.

This has got a blank slate. Mariska is excited about it. She’s already got lots of ideas she’s been talking about with the production company, but I don’t think anybody in the industry can say I know what this show will look like, so you’ve got to tune in to watch it.

No, DEADLINE: Is NBC going to lean into th