The Runner Up Takes It All: Difference between revisions

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Compare [[Second Place Is for Winners]], [[Award Snub]].

* Gareth Gates from ''Pop Idol'', at least to begin with. Not so much several years down the line when Will Young was still fairly successfully releasing material and Gareth was finishing fourth in ''Dancing On Ice''.

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* Liberty X were the runners up on ''Popstars'' and did much better than the actual winners - Hear'say.

** Although Hear'say's Myleene Klass went on to have a better solo career than either.

* ''[[~~Americas~~ Next Top Model]]''- Some blogs that sound surprised when they talk about past winners actually getting modelling work. Every contestant leaves the show with some extra experience of an industry they want to work in and a portfolio of pictures.

* ''[[America's Next Top Model]]''- Some blogs that sound surprised when they talk about past winners actually getting modelling work. Every contestant leaves the show with some extra experience of an industry they want to work in and a portfolio of pictures.

** Elyse Sewell from Cycle 1, who has been very successful in Asia, is considered the most successful contestant to date, even though she came in 3rd.

** That's mostly because the competition is heavily rigged. [[Omniscient Morality License|Tyra may decide from the beginning what kind of winner she wants]] and stage the competition accordingly. Picking mediocre photos on purpose, editing the film with a bias against certain contestants, eliminating girls who might pose a threat to the pre-selected winner, etc. It's pretty common knowledge that C10's Whitney won over far more modelesque Anya only because "It was about time they had a plus-sized girl win." In C12, Allison and Teyona were pretty toe to toe, but Teyona was picked to continue the pattern of [[Token Minority|a black winner every 3rd cycle.]]

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** Also James Max from the first season, who only made it as far as the interview week, but often pops up as a guest presenter on TV shows and has his own radio show with a pretty decent audience. For a while this also applied to Raef Bjayou from the fourth season, although he seems to have faded into obscurity more recently.

** Another example from the fourth season; Ian Stringer bombed out in the third week, and Sir Alan Sugar branded him "an absolute waste of space" and the worst candidate from that year's bunch. These days however he's a fairly well known sports reporter, and enjoys a higher profile than the vast majority of that year's candidates.

* You may not remember that, thanks to [[Hype Backlash]], Susan Boyle actually came ''second'' in ''[[~~Britains~~ Got Talent (TV)|Britains Got Talent]]'' 2009, what with more than ''10 million'' copies of her debut album sold worldwide. (The actual winners? Dance troupe ''Diversity''.)

* You may not remember that, thanks to [[Hype Backlash]], Susan Boyle actually came ''second'' in ''[[Britain's Got Talent (TV)|Britains Got Talent]]'' 2009, what with more than ''10 million'' copies of her debut album sold worldwide. (The actual winners? Dance troupe ''Diversity''.)

** Diversity have done pretty well for themselves, though... it's just that dance troupes don't really release albums or anything.

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninet_Tayeb Ninet Tayeb] won the first season of Israel's equivalent of [[American Idol]]. Her most significant career move since then was her role as an [[Expy]] of herself in "Hashir Shelanu" ("Our Song"), a [[Soap Opera]] about music school. Two-odd seasons of this later she finally got to releasing an album, then went on tour to thundering, embarassed silence whenever she tried to have the audience join in the singing, for lack of familiarity with the words. Meanwhile the runner-up [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiri_Maimon Shiri Maimon] released an album that went gold, performed a ballad in the [[Eurovision Song Contest]] ranking fourth and won the MTV Europe Awards for Best Israeli Act.

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* [[Project Runway]] has had its fair share of runner-ups both breaking into the industry and generally being more well-known than the winners; the only winner, out of its eight-plus seasons, that has actually come through is Season 4's Christian Siriano (ironically, he's the youngest winner in the show's history). The most well-known players are probably Season 1's Austin Scarlett (fourth place) and Season 2's Santino Rice (third place); both have their own reality show currently airing on Lifetime, and have made a modest name for themselves.

* Shear Genius, Season 1: Tabatha Coffey was eliminated mid-late in the show; she now has her own reality show and owns a very high-end salon.

* ''[[The X Factor]]'' has played this trope straight. The runners up from the first series, the vocal group G4, were ultimately more successful than winner Steve Brookstein. In the 2009 series, runner up Olly Murs seems to have become more successful than winner Joe McElderry (whose singing career seems to have been kind of a non-starter after very publicly losing the Christmas number one single spot to [[Rage Against the Machine]]), as have [[So Bad ~~Its~~ Good|memorable]] and [[Anime Hair|visually distinctive]] duo Jedward, who appear to be getting into children's TV presenting and advertising. Some have suggested that the most recent winner, Matt Cardle, might be able to avert it (he's more or less a [[Trans Atlantic Equivalent]] to Chris Daughtry; he was in a couple of indie bands before the show and has made it clear that he wants to write or co-write a lot of his own songs).

* ''[[The X Factor]]'' has played this trope straight. The runners up from the first series, the vocal group G4, were ultimately more successful than winner Steve Brookstein. In the 2009 series, runner up Olly Murs seems to have become more successful than winner Joe McElderry (whose singing career seems to have been kind of a non-starter after very publicly losing the Christmas number one single spot to [[Rage Against the Machine]]), as have [[So Bad It's Good|memorable]] and [[Anime Hair|visually distinctive]] duo Jedward, who appear to be getting into children's TV presenting and advertising. Some have suggested that the most recent winner, Matt Cardle, might be able to avert it (he's more or less a [[Trans Atlantic Equivalent]] to Chris Daughtry; he was in a couple of indie bands before the show and has made it clear that he wants to write or co-write a lot of his own songs).

** ''The X Factor'' is actually interesting because the trope is only really played straight when the winner is male. Only two women have won the contest, [[Leona Lewis]] and Alexandra Burke, both of whom have enjoyed very successful singing careers so far.

** Shayne Ward has been the only male ''X Factor'' winner to more or less avert this trope so far, going on to enjoy a moderately successful career as a singer and musical theatre performer. The runner-up from that year, Andy Abraham also did quite well initially, but his career imploded spectacularly following his disastrous performance as the UK's Eurovision Song Contest contender in 2008.