Those lowest-ever ratings for the 74th Primetime Emmys are also bad news for the Golden Globes & Oscars.
With only 5.9M viewers showing up for NBC’s Emmys, it’s clear the audience for 3 hours-long live awards shows celebrating the best of anything is just not what it once was. Last June, the 75th Tony Awards on CBS pulled in 3.9M viewers.
ABC’s 94th Oscars last March actually look good by comparison with 16.6M viewers. That show ran way long at 3:40, including breaking news as Will Smith smacked Chris Rock. But looking back at 2019 we see the 91st Oscars drew 29.6M viewers.
The reality that awards shows are no longer must-see-TV is something NBC might be thinking about while deciding whether to bring back the 80th Golden Globes in January. The controversies plaguing the HFPA over membership expansion & diversification plus allegations of past financial improprieties are bad enough, but with NBC reportedly paying $60M to air the Globes, the downward awards rating spiral could be on the network’s mind.
As for the Oscars, ABC said the 94th couldn’t run longer than 3 hours, but the Academy didn’t listen. Oscar’s new leadership is a big improvement over the recent past and, hopefully, they’ll start fixing things by setting a firm 3-hour limit for the 95th. It’s definitely good news they’ve just hired Glenn Weiss & Ricky Kirshner as executive producers.
Weiss will also direct, as he’s done for the past 7 years. This will be Weiss’ second time producing the Oscars & Kirshner’s first. Their extensive TV credits include producing 21 live Tony Awards telecasts.