Is 'American Idol' still Emmy's biggest loser?

Last year "American Idol" finally won its first Emmy, which thus, presumably, buried the threat of America's most successful TV show reigning as the biggest loser of TV's top award. The record to beat was 25 defeats held by the old "Newhart" series (1982-1990). After last year's Emmy derby, "American Idol" ended up with 28 losses, one win.

But, wait: Two arguments can be made that "Idol" is still really Emmy's biggest loser. Read on.

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1. Personally, I think "Idol" producers should be forced to give back that Emmy they won last year for outstanding technical direction, camerawork, video for a miniseries, movie or a special. The victory was for last year's "Idol Gives Back" charity special, which was also permitted to compete in the series races.

This gets a bit complicated, but try and follow this. The Emmys have separate awards for TV specials and series. There was some controversy over whether "Idol Gives Back" should be defined as a stand-alone TV special because those episodes contained no element of competition, which, logically speaking, seem to be essential to qualify in the overall top category for TV reality series called outstanding reality competition program.

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