AMAs voting opens

Voting for the 2026 American Music Awards opened Tuesday, April 14, with fan ballots now live ahead of the May 25 ceremony in Las Vegas. (theamas.com) The 52nd American Music Awards will air live on Memorial Day, Monday, May 25, from MGM Grand Garden Arena at 8 p.m. Eastern on CBS and Paramount+. Fan voting is scheduled to close on Friday, May 8. (theamas.com) The show’s nominees were released the same day voting opened. Taylor Swift leads with eight nominations, while Morgan Wallen, Olivia Dean, Sabrina Carpenter and sombr each have seven, and Alex Warren and Lady Gaga have six. (billboard.com) The American Music Awards are structured differently from academy-voted shows because winners are chosen by the public. Paramount+ said the ceremony is one of the few major music awards shows where fans directly decide the winners. (paramountplus.com) This year’s ballot spans 50 categories, including Artist of the Year, Song of the Year, Tour of the Year, Social Song of the Year and genre fields for pop, country, hip-hop, rhythm and blues, Latin, rock, dance, K-pop, Afrobeats and Americana and folk. (theamas.com) The 2026 ceremony also extends the show’s recent reset on CBS. Dick Clark Productions said the 2025 broadcast reached more than 10 million unique viewers across its CBS and Paramount+ premiere and encore airings, the largest audience for the awards since 2019. (theamas.com) Queen Latifah will host the 2026 broadcast, marking 30 years after she co-hosted the show in 1995. Tickets for the May 25 event are already on sale through AXS, according to the show’s organizers. (theamas.com) For now, the next deadline is May 8, when voting closes. The winners will be revealed live 17 days later, when the show returns to Las Vegas on Memorial Day. (theamas.com)