Between Cannes and the Emmy nominations, a quieter but no less consequential trio of television honors will be bestowed in downtown Austin. TVAwardShows.com is covering them in full.
AUSTIN, TEX. — May 14, 2026. The ATX TV Festival, founded in 2012 by Caitlin McFarland and Emily Gipson, returns May 28–31 for its fifteenth season — and with it, three of the most thoughtfully bestowed honors on the awards calendar. TVAwardShows.com, the awards-season almanac of the WholeTech television network, will be documenting each one and threading them through our running record of the 2026 awards year.
Unlike the marquee ceremonies that drive Q1 awards coverage, the ATX honors are juried by the festival's programming team and shaped by the year's most-discussed work. They are presented in-room at the Paramount Theatre rather than from a televised dais — a quiet kind of recognition that often signals which careers and shows the rest of the awards season will be circling.
The five W’s
- WHO
- Co-presidents Caitlin McFarland & Emily Gipson, Head of Programming Jennifer Morgan, and a 24-member advisory board (Noah Hawley, Beau Willimon, Gloria Calderón Kellett, Phil Rosenthal, Richard Linklater, more).
- WHAT
- The ATX TV Festival, Season 15 — five days of premieres, anniversary reunions, master classes, and three honorific awards.
- WHEN
- Thursday May 28 — Sunday May 31, 2026. Opening 9:00 AM Central.
- WHERE
- Downtown Austin — the Paramount Theatre (713 Congress) and Stateside Theatre (719 Congress), Austin Theatre Alliance venues.
- WHY
- "To celebrate television year-round, as one community of fans and industry." The festival's tagline is "TV for all, y'all"; its in-room "Be Cool" policy is widely credited with the candor of the conversation on stage.
The three honors
The 20th-anniversary reunion of the Dillon, Texas, drama collects the festival's tribute to series rooted in the state. Connie Britton, Kyle Chandler, Gaius Charles, Adrianne Palicki, Jesse Plemons, and Aimee Teegarden are scheduled to attend. FNL remains a cornerstone of any conversation about television's 21st-century Texas canon — and a touchstone for the prestige-but-populist register the medium has been chasing ever since.
The casting partnership behind Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, The Walking Dead, and Barry — arguably the most consequential body of casting work of the prestige era. Bialy & Thomas have helped engineer ensembles that define what each show looks like before a single page is shot. The honor recognizes how invisible craft becomes visible legacy.
The Scrubs, Cougar Town, Ted Lasso, and Shrinking showrunner receives the award named for the former NBC Entertainment president. The bestowal arrives at a moment when Lawrence's writers'-room ethos — warmth, decency, ensemble-first — has come to feel like its own genre.
How the ATX honors fit the wider 2026 calendar
Awards-watchers reading TVAwardShows.com know the 2026 cycle by its peaks — the Oscars in March, BAFTA TV in May, the Emmy nominations in July, the Globes in January 2027. The ATX honors sit between BAFTA TV (May 11) and the Emmy nominations (July 9), and they reward different work: not a single season's ballot, but a body of contribution. They are the closest thing American television has to a festival-jury ethos. We will be cross-referencing them with our calendar, our history page, and the running long-form ballot at /odds.html.
- /atx-tv-festival-2026/ — the dedicated festival hub for the 2026 honors.
- /festivals/ — ATX listed alongside Venice, Berlin, Tribeca, and the global festival circuit.
- /calendar.html — May 28–31 added to the 2026 awards-season chronology.
- /history/ — year-by-year record of ATX honorees.
- /odds.html — how the FNL reunion shifts the Texas Made history; how Bialy/Thomas reframes our casting coverage.
- /news/ — daily dispatches May 28–31.
Follow ATX TV directly
About TVAwardShows.com. An award-season almanac covering the Oscars, Emmys, BAFTAs, SAG Awards, Golden Globes, and every other ceremony that shapes the year in television. Sister site of TVReviewer.com, the WholeTech network's television-criticism property.