69th Primetime Emmy Awards Matches 2016 Ratings Low

The Handmaid’s Tale, Veep, Big Little Lies, This Is Us’ Sterling K Brown, Atlanta’s Donald Glover and The Night Of’s Riz Ahmed basked in Emmy glory last night but the final numbers find the show itself matching its worst audience numbers ever. In the key demo, the Stephen Colbert hosted ceremony had it worst result ever.

With 11.38 million viewers tuning into the 69th annual Primetime Emmy Awards is even with last year’s show on ABC, which was the all-time low. The 2016 show was down 5% from the 2015 show, which was the previous low. Among adults 18-49, last night’s Emmys snagged a 2.5 rating. That’s down 10% from the Jimmy Kimmel hosted show of last year, the previous demo low.

Full of repeated swipes at Donald Trump from Colbert and almost everyone else on-stage last night, the 2017 Emmys also faced the well-followed Atlanta Falcons and Green Bay Packers over on Sunday Night Football. The awards show also was up against around 30 minutes of the Denver Broncos’ ratings strong pounding of the Dallas Cowboy that spilled over in to FOX’s primetime. While unlikely to have had a big impact on the Emmys numbers, Sunday was the debut of Ken Burns’ new The Vietnam War documentary series on PBS too.

Clearly in deep with the NFL on Sundays, NBC dealt with its own particular Emmy issue when it broadcast the show in 2014 by moving the whole thing to a Monday and side stepping the NFL. Down from the 2013 show, the 2014 Emmys was the last time the broadcast did better than 12 million viewers, with a total audience of 15.59 million tuning in.

The last time CBS had the Emmys back in 2013, the Neil Patrick Harris hosted hoopla delivered 17.63 million viewers and a rating of 4.9 among adults 18-49.


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About Gaius Bolling 3795 Articles
At the age of five, I knew I wanted to write movies and about them. I've set out to make those dreams come true. As an alumni of the Los Angeles Film Academy, I participated in their Screenwriting program, while building up my expertise in film criticism. I write reviews that relate to the average moviegoer by educating my readers and keeping it fun. My job is to let you know the good, the bad, and the ugly in the world of cinema, so you can have your best moviegoing experience. You can find more of my writing on Instagram @g_reelz.