Something remarkable happened on the first weekend in September last year, when the two Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremonies took place a week before the Primetime Emmys telecast. At the Creative Arts shows, the FX drama series “Shōgun” won 14 awards, breaking the record for the most Emmys ever won by a program in a single year.
It was not surprising that “Shōgun” topped the 13 Emmys that the limited series “John Adams” had won in 2008; most people expected the Japanese-language juggernaut to take a run at that record. The crazy part was that it set a new record before the main Primetime Emmy Awards even took place, walking away from the Creative Arts shows with the record in hand and with seven more chances to increase its total the following weekend.
It won four more at that Primetime show, adding two acting awards, one directing award and the inevitable Outstanding Drama Series Emmy to shatter the existing record.
For “Shōgun” to beat the record with a week to spare was unprecedented; for it to score five more wins than the reigning champ and increase the record total by a full 38% was jaw-dropping.
But as we have written in this space in the past, the Emmys have been giving more nominations and more awards to a smaller group of programs in recent years; peak TV may be good for insatiable viewers, but it’s problematic for voters trying to keep up with the onslaught of content without falling back on their favorites in one category after another.
The Emmy trend is clear. If you look at the 10 shows that have the most wins in a single year, two of them come from 2024 and fully half of them from the previous four Emmy ceremonies. “Shōgun” is No. 1 with 18 wins, while the comedy “The Bear” took another 11 Emmys last year to muscle into a six-way tie for fourth place. The drama series “The Crown” and limited series “The Queen’s Gambit” are also in that group, with both of them earning their 11 wins in 2021. Meanwhile, “The White Lotus” is in tenth place by virtue of its 10 wins in 2022, when it competed as a limited series before the Television Academy reclassified it as a drama series.
That’s five of the 10 winningest shows in the Emmys’ 77-year history, all from the past four years. Another two aired in the 2010s, with third-place “Game of Thrones” making the list in 2015 with 12 wins and the TV movie “Behind the Candelabra” doing so in 2013 with 11 Emmys. And two are from the 2000s: “John Adams” with 13 in 2008 and “Angels in America” with 11 in 2004. The 20th century may have brought us the first 51 Emmy shows, but it gave us only one of the Top 10 winners, 1976’s TV movie “Eleanor and Franklin.”
If this all feels a little disconcerting, relax. What “Shōgun” did last year will probably remain unprecedented for a while longer. The show’s second season has not been filmed yet, and nothing else seems likely to be the kind of colossus that can dominate below-the-line categories at the Creative Arts Emmys and then do the same with writing, directing, acting and program categories at the main show.
Still, the Top 10 list doesn’t lie: For better or worse, the Emmys have become a place where a few shows win a lot of awards.
This story first appeared in the Race Begins issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
