How America’s Most Popular TV Show, Yellowstone, Was So Completely Ignored by the Emmys?

Taylor Sheridan’s universe of shows is a force to be reckoned with, but the awards are still given to “things that appeal to the coastal elite.”

Yellowstone is America’s most-watched TV series, and its co-creator, Taylor Sheridan, is quickly 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 nominations.

TV executives often claim to want shows that appeal to a wide audience. “But at the same time,” says a longtime TV writer and producer, “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 drama set in the moneyed world of a publishing empire seems glamorous, and a ranch in Middle America doesn’t,” the writer and producer continues.

“There’s both a conscious and unconscious bias toward the arena of horses and cowboys.” Yellowstone boasts stunning cinematography, a stellar cast, and a devoted fan base drawn to the show’s brutal power struggles and nostalgia for a vanishing way of life—not to mention a brand of rugged American masculinity that refuses to bow to outside authority.

V.F. hails 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.” Now in its fifth season, the drama stars Kevin Costner as John Dutton, the head of a Montana ranch, and Kelly Reilly as his daughter, Beth, a sharp-tongued corporate raider with a self-destructive streak.

The prequel to Yellowstone 1883, a limited series about frontier settlers, features 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 it’s partly 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 very popular, but not in the right place for the Emmys.”