PBS SoCal Leads L.A. Area Emmy Noms With 29
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- PBS SoCal topped the 78th L.A. Area Emmy nominations tally with 29 nods, ahead of KABC/ABC7 (21), Univision's KMEX (20), Telemundo's KVEA (18), KNBC/NBC4 (15) and Spectrum News 1 (10), with the ceremony set for Saturday, July 25, at the Skirball Cultural Center.
- Wildfire coverage dominated the 2025-eligibility news categories, with ABC7's "7 On Your Side Investigates: Wildfire Insurance Issues," NBC4's "Black Heritage: Altadena Roots And Resilience" and CBS LA's "Wildfires Impact Local Sports Broadcasters" all earning news nominations tied to the January fires.
- Last year's results saw PBS SoCal lead the 2025 L.A. Area Emmys with eight total wins, while KVEA swept all three station newscast awards — morning, daytime and evening — according to the TV Academy.
- Spanish-language outlets are heavily represented, with KMEX landing four individual nominations (including "Crónica de un Infierno" and "Tu Voz LA") and KVEA earning four of its own across news, culture, sports and live special events categories.
- PBS SoCal's strength is built largely on arts, culture and documentary programming tied to its PST ART initiative and the Earth Focus series, rather than news, with multiple nominations for "Lost LA," "Coastal California" and arts-themed specials.
- Sports coverage skewed heavily toward Spectrum SportsNet LA, which landed nominations for Dodgers Kershaw's 3,000th strikeout, a Japan-themed "Backstage Dodgers" episode, and a Spectrum News 1 feature on "Shohei Ohtani: Baseball's Solar Eclipse."
Why it matters: The wildfire-driven news nominations confirm the January fires' outsized impact on the region's editorial agenda, while PBS SoCal's 29 nominations — driven by arts and culture programming rather than news — show public-media documentary work outpacing commercial stations across the ceremony's full category slate. The heavy Spanish-language presence from KMEX and KVEA underscores dual-market local TV as a defining feature of L.A. broadcasting.
Ask SkimNews
