Emmy Ratings Low Delivers Awards-Show Gut Check

Strictly Business podcast. It's just me for this episode, no guest, but there's plenty to talk about with regard to Monday's Emmy Awards. Why well, let's start with record low ratings four point three million viewers to be exact. But before you ring the alarm for the TV industry, let's not panic just yet. There's a lot of reasons we'll get into that. There's actually nothing to panic about for the

Emmys on its seventy fifth anniversary night. And I'm not saying they should be popping bottles over at the TV Academy either. Bad ratings are bad ratings, but there's a whole bunch of extenuating factors we're going to explore that should put Monday's ratings into context. I'm not saying it's an aberration. I wouldn't predict we're going to see those audience figures bounce back up too high in the coming years, but let's hope four point three million is the floor. First,

let's talk about the show itself. I thought it was actually quite good, and most of the reviews I've read agreed. Particularly smart was the way the telecast leaned into nostalgia, bringing together reunited casts from old TV favorites from Cheers to Martin. This was not some poorly produced, sloppy train that deserved mass viewer turnout. It wasn't like the TV

shows that were nominated lack drawing power. Now, there was no giant Game of Thrones type hit that lorded high above them all, but I'm not even sure that's necessary to bring viewers in. The same goes for the choice of host, which, let's be honest, Anthony Anderson is not exactly an A list name, and there was some share of controversy due to some scandals in his past, but

he was actually quite good, beginning to end. The recurring bit with his mother in the audience was comedy gold all night long, which is really hard to pull off, So let's give him some extra credit. On that one. All in all, though nothing intrinsically wrong with the Emmy production on that I really don't think there's an argument to be made otherwise. So what went wrong, Well, I

think you could argue practically everything else. For starters, Let's not forget that the show was airing three months later than it actually does thanks to the writers and actors strikes. I was actually wondering whether the ems might actually find out that airing outside of September might turn out to

its advantage, but that was not to be. No to the contrary, I think what really hurt was that it aired just a week after the Golden Globes aired, and on that note, the Emmys felt very repetitive, at least the Globes, which disclaimer time this podcast is owned by Penske Media, which has an ownership stake in that awards franchise. The Globes saw a healthy fifty percent ratings uptick year

over year. But it's not just that it was one award show right after the next, or that they both award a lot of the same TV categories, but that they awarded many of the same TV shows in the same TV categories repeatedly succession Beef the Bear. They dominated. I think dominated is actually kind of an understatement really in all the key categories. I was sick of all

these shows winning again and again on Globes night. To see it happen yet again on any night was really boring, even though these shows were actually quite deserving of their honors. But to be honest, Succession's final season has been off the air for a very long time. To see it take a victory lap yet again after all this time, well, let's just say it only added to a feeling of

staldness for both of those award shows. Not so much for The Bear, though, which just came off another critically acclaimed season more recently, if anything, with star Jeremy Allen White enjoying quite a moment for himself these days, with a scantily clad Calvin kleinad and heavy rotation and a relatively new movie making the rounds during Award season, that show at least gave the Emmys an adjult of some timeliness,

maybe some hipness. I'm actually curious to see if the combination of the Emmys and the Globes or giving both The Bear and Beef quite a sampling boost on their respecting streaming services right now, But I digress also not helping the Emmy ratings on Monday night. Besides well, airing on Monday night as opposed to a Sunday was the competition. The combination of an NFL wild Card game and coverage

of the Iowa Caucuses that certainly wasn't gonna help. Even just one of those alternatives was bound to wreak havoc on the ratings. Two of them together, well that's like a death sentence. Which isn't to say there's a great deal of over life between awards show watchers, football fans, and political junkies, but there's certainly enough to cause problems. And let's not forget it's not like the Emmys were

flying high coming into twenty twenty four. Anyway. To the contrary, this franchise has been a fairly steady tail spin for

quite some time. The last show registered a five point nine million, which makes the drop to four point three million pretty sizable, but it's sobering to think back to like twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen, there was eleven point four million total viewers, and it's been ticking down ever since, except for a nice recovery in twenty twenty one, when after dropping to six point four million in twenty twenty,

it bounced back up to seven point eight million. Now, could we see yet another bounce back in twenty twenty five?

You know, I would bet so. You're not going to see another perfect storm of contributing calamities like twenty twenty four delivered anytime soon, you know, I'd say the only thing that could really hurt the Emmys is the continuing fragmentation of the TV universe, the fact that what we called a hit five to ten years ago, the kind of show that brought together tens of millions, is becoming

rarer and rarer. But even that isn't necessarily a death warrant for the Emmys, you know, I think there's also just a broader issue with award shows in general. Others are feeling this as well, The Grammys, the Oscars. They all have problems of their own, but in general, award shows, they're all facing existential issues. They're all facing calls for

how do we reinvent the format. The Globes in particular, I think, face this notion of after going through a real sense of going through a break in the action for a year. Are they going to come back? Are they going to try something completely different? And people, to some degree were disappointed, Well, they came back with a very traditional show. There was this notion of, well, why not shake things up? A lot of these shows don't

really end up doing that kind of thing. I would be very surprised to see the Emmys do that kind of thing, and we have not seen any of these franchises really deviate from the tried and true. It takes a lot of guts to do that kind of thing. When you think about the kinds of academies attached to these shows that by and large don't want to really gamble.

There's a lot of traditionalists attached to these shows. Now, if you really did try to shake things up and try to very different format, would that necessarily put butts in seats or butts and couches? Is more to the point, I'm dubious that that is the case. I don't necessarily know that that is really going to be the thing that would juice the ratings for the Emmys or anyone else.

I do think that award shows in general, it really comes down to some very basic things like people wanting to tune in for stars making appearances, and maybe stars need to do very different things than just get up in front of microphones and make the traditional speeches. It also is about the kinds of shows or movies that are being awarded. But beyond those kind of traditional things, I'm not so sure that shaking up traditional formats, as

many critics point out, really will amount to much. We're going to take a break, but when we get back, we're going to talk talk more about the Emmys. So stick around and we are back with more on the Emmy ratings. Look, wherever there are great shows, there are fans that are getting behind them, rooting for them in competition with other shows, and the fans that love them.

Even when the very definition of what you call TV shows migrates to places like I don't know, TikTok and sure laugh now, But I don't think those days are that far away. I think places like the Emmys will bring us all together to celebrate what success is. Time will tell. But while we're talking about award shows, it's never too early to look ahead at what's coming next.

And next month will bring the Grammy Awards. That's going to be the next big one coming to CBS on February fourth, And I think that's going to be a very different story than the one that we just saw for the Emmy Awards, which while that one of course hit a record low, the Grammys are coming off a great performance in twenty twenty three, their best TV ratings in three years. Of course, that of course sets up a tough comparison. Can they keep it going and continue

to rise for yet another year? Well, never too early to see the drumbeat start for the award show season, and the Grammys have already begun to announce performers that are going to be appearing on the Grammy Stage on CBS. Billie Eilish, Dualipa, Olivia Rodrigo. You know, right there probably three among the top ten biggest artists in the game. No Taylor Swift, there, no Beyonce. Never mind, these are

still real big chart toppers. And when it comes to the Grammys, and this is of course a huge advantage they have over things like the Emmys or the Oscars. It is who performs, not who's necessarily up in the

biggest categories or who's sitting in the audience. Who performs that really dictates audience and so when you have three heavy hitters like that that are going to be performing, that's going to tell you a lot about who's going to be showing up to watch for the sixty six and you will Grammy Awards, and we're just getting started. You're going to obviously see a lot of other performers that are going to be joining that stage. And my guess is you're also going to see performers that are

probably from previous generation. Grammys are always good at getting people from not just who are the current chart toppers, but also the performers of old and so that is really a very good sign for the Grammys. Will it be good enough for them to continue a growth story that from a ratings perspective has been in a really good place for the past three where I should say in a good place since twenty twenty three very well could be. That number in twenty three, to be more precise,

was twelve point five million viewers. That was up from nine point two in twenty twenty one nine point six in twenty twenty two, a very far cry from the heights of say twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen, when it was as high as twenty five million, twenty six point one million. Still, this is really quite a comeback story.

And that's of course also to speak nothing of the demo numbers, what they get in the eighteen to forty nine range, where it used to be as high as seven point seven million, seven point eight it's now dipped below the three million number. But still, the Grammys is quite a success story at CBS, and I don't think it's necessarily about the nominations there. It really is about who shows up on that stage, and so I think the Grammys is something that is poised to be a

big story. The Academy Awards is a little farther out, but it is also a similar story there, where after bottoming out, say and around twenty twenty one, down to ten point four million, after climbing way way high to thirty four million north of that in twenty sixteen, it has slowly gone back up in twenty two and twenty three, going to sixteen point six million eighteen point eight million. It's going to be interesting to see if, just like

with the Grammys, whether that growth story continues. Awards shows are a very tough business to be in, but we've seen in recent years from the oscars from the Grammys that when you do it right, when you put the right energy, the right production values, and you make smart choices,

you can do the right things. And I think v Emmys are now at a place where they're going to have to make some hard choices, and once they get rid of all the mitigating factors that made twenty twenty four such a disaster, they will probably find their way back to success in twenty twenty five. I know I'm certainly rooting for them, and so we'll have to check back then. Anyway, that's enough for me this week. We'll be back with another episode of Strictly Business next week.

Thank you for tuning in. M