Early TV Ratings Are Bad News for Emmys

Telecast's TV audience was smallest in history
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 18, 2018 3:03 PM CDT
Early TV Ratings Are Bad News for Emmys
Hosts Colin Jost, left, and Michael Che speak at the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday, Sept. 17, 2018, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.   (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

"We just want to say a quick hello to the thousands of you here in the audience tonight, and to the hundreds watching at home," host Colin Jost joked during his opening monologue at the Emmy Awards Monday night. He may have been off by a few million, but he was on the mark in one way: The telecast's TV audience was the smallest in history, the Los Angeles Times reports. The ratings have been largely falling since 2013, when it had 17.7 million viewers; its previous record low was 11.37 million viewers in 2016. Last year, 11.4 million watched, and this year's average was down 10.5% from that, to 10.17 million viewers, per Nielsen. As the Times notes, the lower ratings coincide with the years in which the Emmys have been increasingly honoring shows from streaming services—making the telecast less appealing to "a mass audience that would typically tune in for an awards show on a large broadcast network." (More Emmy Awards stories.)

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