When it comes to Emmy voters, they like what they like. The shows they picked last year are more often than not the shows they will pick this year. We all groaned at five consecutive years of Modern Family winning Outstanding Comedy and The Handmaid’s Tale raking in a dozen or more nominations long past its prime.
But that kind of rut-digging reaches the point of parody when it comes to the reality-TV categories, where Emmy voters have been nominating the same shows for ten, 15, and even 20 years. This goes all the way back to 2003, when The Amazing Race won the very first Outstanding Reality Competition Emmy. Survivor and American Idol were the more popular shows, but The Amazing Race had a prestige sheen (world travel! Cinematography!), so it wasn’t a huge surprise when it won.
What was a surprise was The Amazing Race going on to win the category for the first seven years of its existence, nine of the first ten, and ten in total. This continued long past the point where The Amazing Race was considered one of the premier reality-TV shows; past the early seasons of Project Runway (which has never won) and Top Chef (which won only once, in 2010). After The Amazing Race won all its Emmys, The Voice won three out of four years, followed by RuPaul’s Drag Race winning five out of the last six years.
In the 21 years the Outstanding Reality Competition category has existed, only five shows have ever won, including a surprise victory for Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls i.
