It's probably now safe to declare that the Primetime Emmy Awards are in danger, with Monday night’s 75th iteration, presented by Fox, cratering another 27% to yet another all-time audience low of 4.3 million average viewers.
The awards presentation delivered a shockingly small 0.85 rating in the 18-49 demographic.
The latest audience decline, reported via preliminary Nielsen data, marks a steady Emmy ratings drop occurring over the last decade, interrupted only by a brief recovery in 2021 following a pandemic year collapse (as showcased by this graphic from Statista).
Hosted by first-time emcee Anthony Anderson, the telecast was largely well-received by awards navel-gazers.
Over in Century City, California, Fox publicists earned their paychecks, spinning the performance as the "most-watched unscripted Monday night telecast in eight-and-a-half years!"
Back on Earth, Fox and the Television Academy did face challenges, including Hollywood guild strikes that delayed the production by four months — how many watchers didn't even know the awards were on television Monday? And this is not to mention some early and severe time-period competition from the NFC wild card game on ABC/ESPN.
Going head-to-head with the NFL’s postseason seems — and not just in hindsight — like a suicide mission.
Curiously, eight days prior, the Golden Globes recovered about 50% of its lost TV audience, averaging 9.7 million viewers on CBS.
That very respectable performance came despite a widely panned hosting performance by comedian Jo Koy, not to mention years of damage wrought to the Golden Globes brand.
This came after Jay Penske’s showbiz trades, in what has been termed a massive conflict of interest, helped run the nonprofit that previously owned the event, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, into the ground, and Penske subsequently bought the awards show and the company that produced it, Dick Clark Productions. And yes, the Globes also went head to head with NFL competition, a Week 18 AFC matchup on NBC’s Sunday Night Football between two playoff-bound teams, the Bills and Dolphins.
For its part, Emmy isn’t tainted by these kinds of corruption issues, but credibility might be undermining its business objectives.
For example, pundits were taken aback when AMC’s Better Call Saul, one of the more critically acclaimed shows in TV history, finished its Emmy consideration run Sunday with a record 50 total nominations across six seasons, but without actually winning a single trophy.
