Reality TV Shows Collect Emmy Award Nominations

Fourteen reality television shows received a total of 39 nominations in this week's announcement of the 59th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards nominees - with the number of shows and the amount of total nominations representing the highest ever for both.

Leading the 2006-2007 reality TV Emmy Awards nomination field - and knocking Fox's American Idol from the perch it held last year - is ABC's Dancing with the Stars.

Dancing with the Stars received eight nominations from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the same number Idol received last year.

It received six nominations in its first primetime season last year and won two. While Idol has been nominated a whopping 29 times since it was first eligible in 2003 - including the seven it received this year - the Fox mega-hit does not yet have a single Emmy Award win to its credit.

CBS' The Amazing Race, the most successful reality show at the Emmys with seven statuettes (including three last year), received five nominations, placing it second behind Dancing with the Stars and Idol. Most notably, The Amazing Race was once again nominated in the Outstanding Reality-competition Program category, which it has won ever since the Academy first created the Emmy Awards category four years ago.

Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch received four nominations in its second year of eligibility - up from the three it received last year - followed by Bravo's Project Runway, which received three nods for the second year in a row in its third year of eligibility.

ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (which has won the Outstanding Reality Program award two years in a row and is nominated in the category again this year) received two nominations - as did Fox's So You Think You Can Dance and Bravo's Top Chef, marking the first time that either of the second-year eligible shows received any nominations.

Rounding out the nominations with one apiece are Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs; Fox's Hell's Kitchen; A&E Network's Intervention; Bravo's Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List; Fox's On the Lot; and CBS' Survivor.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.