NEW YORK — The 2023 Tony Awards proved to be must-see-TV, as the awards show recorded its best viewership since 2019.
About 4.3 million people tuned in Sunday for the CBS broadcast of the ceremony honoring Broadway’s best, up by 2% from last year, according to Variety. The 2019 show recorded 5.4 million viewers on CBS.
Paramount+ also reportedly recorded a 13% increase for Sunday’s show over 2022 but didn’t release specific streaming numbers.
This year’s Tonys took place at the United Palace in Washington Heights for the first time in the show’s 76-year history. The ceremony went unscripted due to the ongoing Hollywood writers strike and packed its air time with performances from Broadway shows including “Funny Girl,” “Sweeney Todd,” “A Beautiful Noise” and “Camelot.”
Ariana DeBose, a Broadway veteran and Oscar-winner for “West Side Story,” hosted the Tonys for a second consecutive year.
“We don’t have a script, you guys,” DeBose said after opening the show with an elaborate, lyric-less dance number. “Yeah, I’m live and unscripted! You’re welcome. So to anyone who may have thought that last year was a bit unhinged, I say to them, ‘Darlings, buckle up.’”
Viewers watched “Kimberly Akimbo” win best new musical; “Leopoldstadt” win best play; “Parade” win best musical revival; and “Topdog/Underdog” win best revival of a play.
“Shucked” star Alex Newell and “Some Like It Hot” star J. Harrison Ghee made history as the first openly nonbinary actors to win Tony honors.
