Apple TV+'s horror-comedy "Widow's Bay" collected 19 Emmy nominations for the 78th Emmy Awards, the most of any new series this cycle, according to nominations announced July 8 Engadget. The show edges out fellow Apple TV+ title "Pluribus," a sci-fi drama that drew 18 nominations Engadget.

Created by Katie Dippold, "Widow's Bay" ran its first season across 10 episodes and picked up nominations spanning writing, directing, and lead and supporting acting categories Engadget. Dippold herself received a writing nomination. Director Hiro Murai was nominated for his work, Matthew Rhys (playing Mayor Tom Loftis) earned an acting nomination, and Kate O'Flynn (playing Patricia) was nominated for supporting actress. The series was nominated for Best Comedy The New York Times.

The Television Academy had previewed the season's closing stretch weeks earlier, publishing an interview with Dippold on June 23 discussing the finale Emmys.com. That piece signaled the kind of late-season Academy attention that often precedes a strong nominations showing.

At the platform level, HBO Max led all networks and streamers with 122 nominations, ahead of Netflix's 111 Engadget TheWrap. Apple placed third with 87 nominations total. Within HBO Max's tally, medical drama "The Pitt" was the single most-nominated show of the year across any network or service, with 26 nominations, outpacing "Widow's Bay" on raw count but not among titles debuting this season.

The 78th Emmy Awards ceremony is set for September 14 on NBC, also streaming on Peacock Emmys.com.

It is worth separating individual title performance from platform-level totals, since they answer different questions. "Widow's Bay" led among new shows specifically — a category that resets each awards cycle and rewards how well a debut title breaks through across acting, writing, and directing. Platform totals like HBO Max's 122 or Netflix's 111 reflect the breadth of a full slate, including returning franchises, limited series, and unscripted programming, not any single show's strength.

Apple's third-place platform finish at 87 nominations, set against two Apple TV+ originals occupying the top two spots among new shows, shows a service that continues to outperform its subscriber size in prestige categories, even while trailing HBO Max and Netflix on volume. Apple TV+ has pursued this pattern since its 2019 launch, betting on a smaller number of high-craft originals rather than the scale strategy of larger libraries. "Widow's Bay" and "Pluribus" combining for 37 nominations between two shows, against Apple's 87 total, means those two titles account for a substantial share of the platform's nominations this cycle.

The genre mix at the top of the new-show nominations is notable: a horror-comedy and a sci-fi drama breaking into the top tier, rather than the prestige dramas or single-camera comedies that have more traditionally dominated. Whether this reflects a genuine Academy shift in taste or simply the strength of these two productions is not yet clear from a single cycle, but it is worth watching as the ceremony approaches.

For Apple, the practical stakes of the September 14 ceremony extend beyond trophy counts. Emmy nominations function as a marketing asset in subscriber acquisition and retention conversations, particularly for a service still building out its scripted library relative to legacy competitors. A strong showing for "Widow's Bay" at the ceremony itself, rather than just in nominations, would matter more for Apple's positioning heading into the fall content calendar.