Number of TV viewers of the Emmy Awards 1987-2024
In September 2024, around 6.87 million people watched the Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony in the United States. This figure marked a growth from the all-time low in viewership recorded in the delayed 2023 awards. The Emmys were at their most popular between the early 1990s and early 2000s.
Emmy ratings hit record low
The 75th Primetime Emmy Awards drew the smallest audience in the history of the telecast. It was the first time that the viewership of television’s biggest night dropped below five million viewers – a threshold that not even the hybrid ceremony of 2020 had previously undercut. For comparison, over 21 million viewers tuned in to watch the live event in 1994 and 2000, highlighting how drastically audience interest has declined since then. Another factor contributing to the show’s poor performance in 2024 was its Monday nighttime slot, which conflicted with an NFL playoff game.
Spotlight on other awards shows
The Emmys are not the only awards ceremony to have lost viewers and relevance over the past few years. Even the Oscars, Hollywood’s most renowned celebration, have failed to draw audiences’ attention recently. In 2024, the number of Academy Awards viewers stood at 19.5 million, and even though this figure marked a visible upswing from the previous years, the audience was still only half the size it used to be back in 2015. A similar downward trend has also been unfolding at the Grammys. Around 16.9 million viewers tuned in to watch the show in 2024, whereas this number used to surpass 25 million in the early 2010s.
