Nominations for the 60th annual CMA Awards are announced on 10 September 2026.
The detail worth knowing before the day is that the announcement is split across two places, and the one most people tune into carries the smaller half.
Where it happens
| Where | What |
|---|---|
| Good Morning America | A selection of categories — the headline ones |
| CMA YouTube livestream | The remaining nominations — the bulk of the list |
This is standard practice for awards announcements and it catches people out every year. A morning show has a few minutes; a full nominations list runs to a dozen or more categories. So if you are following a particular artist in a craft or performance category, the television segment will very likely not mention them.
Entertainer of the Year, and why it is the one
Most awards categories judge a thing — a single, an album, a performance. Entertainer of the Year judges a year.
It takes in touring, record sales, airplay and general presence, which is why an artist can win it without having the year’s best-reviewed album, and why a critically acclaimed record does not guarantee it. It is closer to a measure of who dominated the format.
Lainey Wilson won it at the 2025 ceremony, from a field that also included Luke Combs, Cody Johnson, Chris Stapleton and Morgan Wallen.
The CMAs and the ACMs are not the same awards, and confusing them is the most common error in country coverage. They are run by different organisations, voted on by different bodies, and held at different times of year. The same artist can win one and lose the other in the same twelve months, and neither result is a correction of the other. If you are comparing a nomination list to something you remember from earlier in the year, check which set of awards you are remembering — it is frequently the other one.
What to watch for in the list
- How many categories one artist appears in. A wide spread across performance and craft categories usually signals the eventual Entertainer of the Year frontrunner better than any single nomination.
- New Artist. This is where the following year’s headliners tend to surface first.
- Collaborations. Country has leaned heavily on duets and features in recent years, and the collaboration categories are where genre crossovers show up.
- Who is missing. An absent name with a large commercial year is usually the story of the morning.
Before 10 September
Nothing is confirmed until the announcement. Predictions circulating now are informed guesses based on chart performance and touring, and they have a mixed record — the voting body is made up of industry members whose preferences do not always track the charts.
The one thing worth doing in advance is knowing where to look on the day: the television segment for the headlines, the livestream for everything else.
Nominations for the 60th annual CMA Awards are scheduled to be announced on 10 September 2026, with a selection of categories revealed on Good Morning America and the remaining nominations during a livestream on the Country Music Association’s YouTube channel, as reported by Billboard and UPI. Lainey Wilson won Entertainer of the Year at the 2025 CMA Awards, where the other nominees in that category were Luke Combs, Cody Johnson, Chris Stapleton and Morgan Wallen. The CMA Awards and the Academy of Country Music Awards are separate ceremonies run by different organisations. Announcement arrangements are set by the CMA and may change; cmaawards.com and the CMA’s own channels are authoritative. The observations about how to read a nominations list are general commentary rather than reporting.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
When are the 2026 CMA Awards nominations announced?
10 September 2026, for the 60th annual CMA Awards.
Where can I watch the announcement?
In two parts. A selection of categories is revealed on Good Morning America, and the remaining nominations follow during a livestream on the CMA’s YouTube channel.
Which part has the most categories?
The livestream. Television segments carry a handful of headline categories for time reasons, so most of the list — including many craft and performance categories — appears in the stream rather than on air.
Who won Entertainer of the Year last time?
Lainey Wilson, at the 2025 ceremony. The other nominees that year were Luke Combs, Cody Johnson, Chris Stapleton and Morgan Wallen.
Why does Entertainer of the Year matter more than the other categories?
It is the only award that considers an artist’s whole year rather than a single record — touring, sales, airplay and visibility together. It is treated as the night’s top honour for that reason.
Is this the same as the ACM Awards?
No. The CMA Awards and the ACM Awards are run by different organisations with different voting bodies, and they frequently produce different winners in the same year.
