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A single award for the best reality show of the year could give the genre’s ailing categories a face-lift.
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images (Euan Cherry/PEACOCK, Sean Zanni/Bravo), Christopher Willard/Disney
Reality TV has never had a problem capturing attention, but throughout its 25-year ascendance to the apex of pop culture, respect has been harder to come by. To this day, the genre gets labeled trashy or lowbrow — Andy Cohen himself still gets Housewives fans who think he’ll be shocked to know they’re lawyers and scientists. This is especially evident at the Emmys, where the main telecast presents 26 awards, 25 of which go to scripted programming, with just one — Outstanding Reality Competition — reserved for reality. The other 16 Emmys awarded to reality shows (along with 12 more for nonfiction, documentary, or game shows) are relegated to the Creative Arts Emmys that take place the week prior.
This striking bifurcation has a lot to do with actors. The Primetime Emmys telecast is loaded with categories honoring A-list performers, and those are the awards most people tune in to see. (If only there was an equivalent for onscreen reality talent …) But the decision to use one main telecast Emmy to represent only a portion of the genre’s programming is also a value judgment. The category honors shows like The Traitors, RuPaul’s Drag Race, The Voice, and The Amazing Race but neglects some of unscripted TV’s most popular titles: Love Island, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and Love on the Spectrum. They all fall within the Creative Arts’ reality categories, Structured Reality and Unstructured Reality. So reality TV is not only outnumbered but misrepresented. There’s an easy fix to this, one that would prevent further bloat to the Emmy telecast but would shine a brighter light on a segment of television that deserves it: Combine all reality programming into the single category, Outstanding Reality Series.
When the Emmys first started awarding “reality TV” as we now know it with the Outstanding Reality Competition Program category in 2003, it made sense to elevate those types of shows. Survivor, The Amazing Race, Project Runway, and American Idol were now dominating the TV ratings on the major broadcast networks. These shows were a different animal from the ones honored in the Creative Arts category that was then known as Outstanding Nonfiction Program (Reality), but the differences were less about format and more about the size and scope of the competition shows.
But as other reality-TV subgenres similarly flourished over the two-plus decades since, the Emmys responded by micro-classifying the shows and pushing most of them to the Creative Arts ceremony. Outstanding Nonfiction Program (Reality) became Outstanding Reality Program in 2004 and encompassed all non-competition reality with winners like Undercover Boss and Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. Then in 2014, it split into two categories: Structured Reality and Unstructured Reality, both of which remained Creative Arts categories. According to the Emmys rule book, a Structured Reality program is one that “contain[s] story elements that mostly adhere to a recurring structured template.” Think Queer Eye, where each episode follows a set format from one aspect of the makeover to the next, or Shark Tank’s pitch-then-negotiation structure. An Unstructured Reality program “contain[s] story elements driven by the actions of civilian and/or celebrity participants and lacking a consistent, structured template and standardized pattern of action.” Think Deadliest Catch and its quasi-documentary format or, more recently, Love on the Spectrum. This is where your Real Housewives shows would exist (though the category has never nominated any Housewives season). Presenting a combined Outstanding Reality Series award solves a few problems at once:
The Traitors is great! Drag Race is great! But why are those shows, at their best, inherently superior to Love on the Spectrum or Shark Tank or Deadliest Catch? The Emmys are supposed to identify and honor the TV that defined the previous year. Sometimes those shows are Top Chef and Survivor, but other times they’re Summer House and The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
By instituting these categories, the Emmys have indulged in the false notion that there are only three kinds of reality shows. In truth, there are dozens. A reality competition where the outcome is determined by the players (Survivor) isn’t the same as one where the outcome is determined by a panel of judges (Project Runway). Shows filmed in a studio (The Voice) present different production challenges than shows filmed out in the field (The Amazing Race). Why is the gulf between The Golden Bachelorette (which submitted as a competition series last year) and “structured reality” like Love Is Blind more insurmountable than the gulf between two competition series like American Ninja Warrior and Nailed It?
Instead of parsing impossible questions, we should be asking Emmy voters to embrace the variety found in the reality genre and make their own determination as to which is better executed. The Traitors and Love on the Spectrum both feature strong characters with compelling arcs. Take away the highlands and the suburbs and the big round table, and these are two shows that tell stories through the words and actions of real people. That ought to be enough common ground to determine which show voters deem more outstanding.
We mention this every year, but it bears repeating: The reality-TV categories are flagrantly repetitive. In the 23 years that the Reality Competition category has existed, 13 shows have accounted for 120 of the 125 total nominations. The top four most-nominated shows (The Amazing Race, Top Chef, Project Runway, and The Voice) have accounted for more than half of those nominations. There has never been a year when The Amazing Race and Top Chef have both missed out. This is a category that is screaming for a shake-up. Outstanding Structured Reality is nearly as bad with the same five shows nominated since 2023. Queer Eye hasn’t missed a nomination since 2017, Shark Tank since 2011, and Antiques Roadshow since 2004.
Expanding the reality field to include all varieties would force voters to make some tougher choices. It might also reveal some hidden passions among the voters. The nine total nominations for Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives is one thing while it’s nestled safely away in Structured Reality. But if Triple D starts pulling in nominations ahead of Top Chef or Survivor? You’d really have to start showing Mr. Fieri some respect. Just how deep does Emmy-voter loyalty run for Antiques Roadshow? There’s only one way to find out.
In 2023, the hype surrounding Scandoval vaulted Vanderpump Rules to its first Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program nomination. But it was a footnote in Emmys coverage because the category was presented at the less prestigious ceremony. Even the most hard-core fans of Bravo scandal factories like The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and Summer House aren’t going to watch the Creative Arts Emmys. So what if instead the Scandoval season of Vanderpump had been nominated in an Outstanding Reality Series category alongside Drag Race (the year Sasha Colby won), Survivor (the year of Carolyn and Yam Yam), the first season of Welcome to Wrexham, Love Is Blind (the Dallas and Seattle seasons), and Top Chef: World All-Stars, presented on the main Emmys telecast in full view of Jennifer Aniston and Pedro Pascal? Now that’s a category with some juice to it!
Now, what would an Outstanding Reality Series category look like this year?
The top contenders for Reality Competition are the same ones as last year: The Traitors is going for its third consecutive win on the back of its best U.S. season yet. Its competition includes RuPaul’s Drag Race (repping a bewildering but not uncompelling season), an Amazing Race season that never left Europe and was populated solely by Big Brother alums, and the currently airing seasons of Top Chef: Carolinas and Survivor 50. The Traitors isn’t considered the heavy favorite because it features cast members plucked from each of those four other franchises, but it does make for nice symbolism. The one new show that might be able to break into this lineup could be CBS’s America’s Culinary Cup, produced and hosted by 16-time Emmy nominee Padma Lakshmi. There’s also category newcomer Kevin Hart, whose Funny AF crowned its inaugural winner this week.
The Structured Reality category will surely once again feature Queer Eye and Shark Tank, which have dominated this category for the last 12 years. Love Is Blind (seasons nine and ten) will be going for its fifth consecutive nomination. And, of course, the aforementioned Antiques Roadshow and Diners, Drive-ins and Dives will likely be in the mix. Two new shows to keep an eye on: Netflix’s Age of Attraction has Love Is Blind producer Sam Dean as an EP and is co-hosted by certified Reality Mastermind Nick Viall. But the one I’d put my chips on is Hulu’s Love Overboard, hosted by Traitors champion Gabby Windey, which will offer Emmy voters a chance to vote for The Traitors a second time by proxy.
Love on the Spectrum is the defending champ in Unstructured Reality, where it will likely face off with Welcome to Wrexham and the scandal-wracked The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives (scandal probably helps in terms of keeping the show Emmys relevant), along with perennial nominee RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked. This is the category where Summer House would be eligible should its sudden surge in notoriety appeal to voters.
In a one-category-to-rule-them-all scenario, here’s how I’d rank the contenders:
1. The Traitors
2. Love on the Spectrum
3. RuPaul’s Drag Race
4. Survivor 50
5. Welcome to Wrexham
6. Summer House
7. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives
8. Love Overboard
Look, it’s my hypothetical award; I can predict Ciara Miller and Gabby Windey to oust The Amazing Race and Top Chef if I want to.