<P> American Idol was nominated for the Emmy's Outstanding Reality Competition Program for nine years but never won . Director Bruce Gower won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing For A Variety, Music Or Comedy Series in 2009, and the show won a Creative Arts Emmys each in 2007 and 2008, three in 2009, and two in 2011, as well as a Governor's Award in 2007 for its Idol Gives Back edition . It won the People's Choice Award, which honors the popular culture of the previous year as voted by the public, for favorite competition / reality show in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2011 and 2012 . It won the first Critics' Choice Television Award in 2011 for Best Reality Competition . </P> <P> In 2013, TV Guide ranked the series No. 48 on its list of the 60 Best Series of All Time . </P> <P> Throughout the series, eleven of the sixteen Idol winners, including its first five, had come from the Southern United States . A large number of other finalists during the series' run have also hailed from the American South, including Clay Aiken, Kellie Pickler, and Chris Daughtry, who are all from North Carolina . In 2012, an analysis of the 131 contestants who have appeared in the finals of all seasons of the show up to that point found that 48% have some connection to the Southern United States . </P> <P> The show itself was popular in the Southern United States, with households in the Southeastern United States 10% more likely to watch American Idol during the eighth season in 2009, and those in the East Central region, such as Kentucky, were 16 percent more likely to tune into the series . Data from Nielsen SoundScan, a music - sales tracking service, showed that of the 47 million CDs sold by Idol contestants through January 2010, 85 percent were by contestants with ties to the American South . </P>

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