‘Widow’s Bay’ Wins Emmy for Best Comedy Series, Setting New Freshman Record

Widow’s Bay has won the top comedy award at the 2026 Emmys, which also happened to be the final trophy of the evening. (The Emmy Awards rotate between ending on comedy and drama each year.) In doing so, the freshman series set a new record for most Emmys (14) for a first-year comedy series, topping fellow Apple TV program The Studio (13) from just last year. The best comedy category this year also included ABC’s Abbott Elementary, the penultimate season FX/Hulu’s The Bear, the final season of HBO Max series Hacks, Apple TV’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Netflix’s Nobody Wants This, Hulu’s Only Murders In The Building and Apple TV’s Shrinking. Hacks set a single-season record this year for most nominations for a comedy series with 24; Widow’s Bay led all new shows with 19 nominations. Last year, The Studio won the category (and a bunch of others). The Studio received 23 nominations in 2025, tying the prior record for a comedy series (the one Hacks surpassed this year). Seth Rogen’s comedy series defeated all of the same shows that are nominated this year, with one exception: the final season of What We Do in the Shadows in the spot was occupied by season one of Widow’s Bay. Widow’s Bay hails from Kate Dippold. In her second acceptance speech of the evening, Dippold first thanked her mom “for always making Halloween fun.” With that out of the way, she praised the “wonderful weirdos and artists” who worked on Widow’s Bay, as well as Apple TV who “let us do this weird show.” Finally, Dippold thanked “the evil entity” on the Widow’s Bay island “that trusted us with this story.” Here is the complete list of Widow’s Bay Emmy wins:Best Comedy SeriesBest Actor in a Comedy Series — Matthew RhysBest Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series — Kate O’FkynnBest Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series — Stephen RootBest Directing for a Comedy Series — Hiro MuraiBest Writing for a Comedy Series — Kate DippoldOutstanding Casting for a Comedy SeriesBest Cinematography for a Series (Half-Hour)Guest Actress in a Comedy Series — Betty GilpinBest Score — David FlemingMusic Supervision — Toko NagataProduction Design for a Narrative Program (Half-Hour)Sound Editing for a Series (Half-Hour)Sound Mixing for a Series (Half-Hour) THR Newsletters Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day Subscribe Sign Up