Should 'American Idol' be forced to give back its Emmy win?
"American Idol" finally won an Emmy tonight, but — hey, wait a minute! — should its recipients honored for "Idol Gives Back" be forced to give it back?
Many of this website's forum posters say "yes" (click here) — with good reason.
How is it possible that "Idol Gives Back" was permitted to compete as a special and a series? It can't be both. It was either a stand-alone TV special and should compete in those races, or it was a regular episode of an ongoing series and compete there. The Emmys have distinctly separate awards for those different program classifications.
A while ago TV academy chiefs weighed this very important question because the stakes are so high. The producers of TV's most popular show really, really want to win the top Emmy race for realty TV shows — the category called Outstanding Reality Competition Program, which it lost for four years in a row to "Amazing Race." On the eve of this year's Emmy derby, "Idol" producers thought: If the TV academy would permit them to submit "Idol Gives Back" as a regular episode of a TV series, that might certainly increase its chance to win since the show was such a high-minded, star-studded appeal to help charities. But there was a glitch. Technically, there was no element of competition in that "Idol" installment. It really was a special, even though it aired during "Idol's" regular time slot.
However, ATAS eventually decided yes. "Idol Gives Back" could be submitted as an episode sample to be viewed by judges deciding the winner in that series category — and that's what its producers did. I can verify that. I've seen the episode entries in that race. If "Idol" wins that award next Sunday night as "Idol" host Ryan Seacrest presides over the Emmycast, it will be because judges endorsed that one "Idol Gives Back" episode. Therefore, ATAS decided that it was not a TV special.
But then ATAS, quite strangely, decided that it also is a special and permitted it to compete there, too. Is that fair?
If not, then it means that "Idol Gives Back" should not have been permitted to compete in the category that it won tonight -- Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special. Right? Or if "Idol" is permitted to keep this Emmy, then its entry next Sunday might, theoretically, be disqualified since the exact same TV footage, minute for minute, is being judged in a separate category reserved for regular series.
All of this matters a lot because the stakes are so high in another respect.
For about an hour tonight the most popular program on TV reigned as the biggest loser of TV's top prize. "American Idol" lost category after category after category at the creative arts awards, finally racking up four losses, which placed its total tally of defeats without a win at 26 — one above the shut-out record of the old "Newhart."
