How America’s Most Popular TV Show Was Completely Ignored by the Emmys

Yellowstone is America’s most-watched TV show, and its co-creator Taylor Sheridan is fast becoming one of Hollywood’s most prolific showrunners, with at least eight series in production or development. He has a major deal with Paramount and a constellation of shows. But none of that helped this year’s Emmy nominations, where Yellowstone was completely wiped out, while its recent spinoff, 1883, earned just three technical nods.

TV executives often claim to want the show to appeal to a broad audience. “But at the same time,” said one longtime TV producer and writer, “you see what they’re putting out that’s awards-worthy — and it’s stuff that appeals to the coastal elite, for the most part.” Take Succession, for example. It leads this year’s nominations with 25, and like Yellowstone, it’s steeped in tragedy and bitter family struggles. “But a period drama set in the moneyed world of a publishing empire seems glamorous, while a ranch in Middle America doesn’t,” the writer-producer continues. “There’s both a conscious and unconscious bias toward the arenas of horses and cowboys.” Yellowstone boasts stunning cinematography, a stellar cast, and a passionate fan base drawn to the show’s brutal power struggles and nostalgia for a vanishing way of life—not to mention a brand of tough American masculinity that refuses to bow to outside authority. V.F. praised Yellowstone’s plot as “reminiscent of the power struggles of Succession, the mob mentality of The Godfather, and the bitter infighting of Dallas—except with cattle.” Heading into its fifth season, the drama stars Kevin Costner as John Dutton, the patriarch of a Montana ranch, and Kelly Reilly as his daughter, Beth, a sharp-tongued corporate raider with a self-destructive streak. The prequel Yellowstone 1883, a limited series about frontier settlers, stars married country music legends Faith Hill and Tim McGraw as Dutton’s ancestors. Those stars may actually cause some disconnect, as one Emmy voter suggested: “I think part of it is a demographic thing. The fact that 1883 has Faith Hill and Tim McGraw means it speaks a little bit to the country audience. It’s incredibly popular, but it’s not in the right place for the Emmys.”