2023 Emmy Awards set record low ratings of 4.3 million people
Figure is down from the show’s previous record low of 5.9 million for NBC’s telecast in 2022
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The 75th Primetime Emmy Awards failed to land an audience on its long-delayed air date of Monday, 15 January.
Hosted for the first time by Black-ish star Anthony Anderson, the 2024 Emmys celebrated the best television shows that aired between 1 June 2022, and 31 May 2023, witnessing big wins for Succession, Beef and The Bear.
The ceremony was initially scheduled in its usual September slot; however, it was pushed back due to the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes that ground the industry to a halt over the summer.
The Nielsen company said Tuesday that the Monday night telecast on Fox reached a record-low audience of 4.3 million viewers.
This figure is down from the previous record low of 5.9 million for NBC’s telecast in 2022, the last time the event was held.
This year’s Emmys had a lot working against them. Aside from the delay, they had to compete with both an NFL playoff game and coverage of the Iowa caucuses in the presidential campaign.
The audience was less than half of what the CBS telecast of the Golden Globes got eight days earlier. That show, which honoured both TV and movies and had bigger stars in attendance including Taylor Swift, had 9.4 million viewers.
The Emmys and Anderson got generally positive reviews for a show that spent much of its time honouring past television, with reunions and set recreations from shows including “Cheers,” “Martin” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” Variety called it “delightful” while The Hollywood Reporter praised its “polish, proficiency and emotion.”
But that didn’t help the continuing decline in numbers.
The height-of-the-pandemic Emmys in 2020 on ABC, with no in-person audience and remote nominees, set a new low at the time with 6.1 million viewers, but the show bounced back the following year with 7.4 million for CBS.
Then the decline began again in 2022.
The four broadcast networks rotate airings of the show.
The last time the Emmys reached more than 10 million viewers was 2018, when it drew in 10.2 million. The show had 21.8 million viewers in 2000, a level it’s unlikely ever to reach again.
Additional reporting from The Associated Press
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