Published: August 20, 2026 · 10:55 AM EDT
Two of music’s biggest global names lead the September 27 awards as CBS, MTV and Paramount+ carry the VMAs across broadcast television, cable and streaming
Madonna leads the nominations for the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards with 11 nods, followed by Taylor Swift with nine as two of the biggest names in modern music history head into this year’s ceremony.
Madonna is nominated for major awards including Video of the Year, Artist of the Year and Song of the Year, while Swift competes for Video and Artist of the Year alongside categories including Best Pop and several production and technical honors.
Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter follow with seven nominations each, while Bruno Mars, PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson have five apiece.
The 2026 VMAs will air live from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday, September 27, beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT. The two-hour show will be broadcast on CBS, simulcast on MTV and streamed on Paramount+ in the United States.
Madonna’s 11 nominations add another chapter to a relationship with MTV that stretches back to the beginning of the Video Music Awards.
She has now received VMA nominations in every decade of her recording career and currently holds 19 competitive VMA wins. In 1986, she also became the first solo female artist to receive MTV’s Video Vanguard Award.
Her 2026 nominations center heavily on “Confessions II – The Film,” which competes for Video of the Year as well as categories including Best Dance, Direction, Art Direction, Cinematography, Editing, Choreography and Visual Effects.
Madonna is also nominated for Artist of the Year and for her collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter, “Bring Your Love.”
If Madonna were to win all 11 of her competitive categories, she would reach 30 competitive VMA victories, tying Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.
Taylor Swift enters the ceremony with an equally significant historical opportunity.
Swift currently shares the record for the most VMA wins with Beyoncé at 30 each. Just one victory in 2026 would therefore move Swift ahead as the most-awarded artist in VMA history.
Her nine nominations include Video of the Year for “The Fate of Ophelia”, Artist of the Year and Best Pop, along with Direction, Art Direction, Cinematography, Editing, Choreography and Visual Effects.
The Video of the Year category brings Swift and Madonna directly together alongside Ariana Grande, Bruno Mars, Sabrina Carpenter and GENER8ION.
The VMAs are also operating across a wider media structure than the MTV cable channel that originally established the awards.
The September ceremony will reach U.S. audiences simultaneously through CBS broadcast television, MTV cable and Paramount+ streaming. International audiences will be able to access the show through Paramount+ and MTV beginning the following day.
That distribution illustrates how a music awards brand created during the cable-TV era is now being positioned across several viewing platforms at once.
CBS already carries several major entertainment awards programs, while MTV remains the identity attached to the VMAs and Paramount+ extends the event into streaming.
For the music industry, the ceremony continues to function as more than an awards night: it is also a large promotional platform bringing labels, artists, videos and current releases together in front of a broad mainstream audience.
TOP 2026 NOMINEES
Madonna - 11 nominations
Taylor Swift - 9
Ariana Grande - 7
Sabrina Carpenter - 7
Bruno Mars - 5
PinkPantheress - 5
Zara Larsson - 5
LISA - 4
Shakira - 3
Tate McRae - 3
GENER8ION - 3
Yung Lean - 3
VIDEO OF THE YEAR
Ariana Grande – “hate that i made you love me”
Bruno Mars – “I Just Might”
GENER8ION – “STORM starring Yung Lean”
Madonna – “Confessions II – The Film”
Sabrina Carpenter – “Tears”
Taylor Swift – “The Fate of Ophelia”
ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Ariana Grande
Bruno Mars
Madonna
Morgan Wallen
Sabrina Carpenter
Taylor Swift
The 2026 nominations span pop, hip-hop, R&B, alternative, Latin, K-pop and country, while Best Dance returns for the first time in seven years.
The awards also include 26 first-time nominees, among them CORTIS, Stella Lefty, Don Toliver, Kali Uchis, Noah Kahan, Olivia Dean, Tucker Wetmore and Sienna Spiro.
Fan voting is open across 13 categories through September 25, while Best New Artist voting remains active into the ceremony.
The numbers at the top of the 2026 nominations connect two very different generations of music-business power.
Madonna remains the leading nominee more than four decades after becoming one of the artists most closely associated with MTV’s rise, while Taylor Swift enters the same ceremony with an opportunity to take sole possession of the VMA career-wins record.
At the same time, distributing the show through CBS, MTV and Paramount+ shows how the VMAs themselves have moved beyond their original cable television model.
The artists, technology and consumption habits surrounding music videos have changed considerably since the first VMAs in 1984, but the awards remain positioned as a major mainstream showcase for current releases and global music brands.
With Madonna leading the field with 11 nominations and Taylor Swift following with nine, the 2026 MTV VMAs combine legacy, current commercial power and a potentially historic awards race. Madonna has a chance to reach the 30-win mark, while a single Swift victory would move her beyond Beyoncé as the most-awarded artist in VMA history when the ceremony airs September 27 from Los Angeles.
Written by Gino Alache – Music Journalist
SOURCE: MTV / Associated Press / Reuters
IMAGE CREDIT: Confessions II - The Film
