The 77th Emmy Awards just had its most-viewed broadcast in years, definitively reversing course after taking a viewership nosedive during the pandemic.
That’s the good news.
The less-ideal news is the hope of reaching pre-pandemic viewership is looking more unlikely than ever.
Despite underwhelming reviews for host Nate Bargatze, the latest Emmys ceremony brought in 7.4 million viewers across CBS and Paramount+, according to Nielsen, up 8% from 2024 and the most-viewed broadcast since 2021.
Clearly, these are welcome results for CBS, which needed a win after several unflattering months. But the numbers represent just a modest win when viewed in the context of the overall 2025 awards season so far, which is widely defined by flatlines and minimal growth compared with recent years.
The 2024 awards season on the whole saw healthy year-over-year jumps across the major names, signaling viewers might indeed be coming back after years of decline. But just one year later, the pandemic bump has seemingly run its course, and even with Sunday’s Emmys viewership win, the reality of broadcast TV’s long and painful fade-out is setting back in.
Take the Academy Awards, which in March hit a post-pandemic viewership high for the fourth year in a row. Again, great news taken as is, but that 19.7 million audience tally was just a 1% increase from 2024, a far cry from the massive growth seen in 2022. Even then, viewership for the 97th Oscars was still well below the ceremony’s pre-pandemic numbers.
Elsewhere this awards season, the Golden Globes stalled at 9.3 million total viewers after a 50% jump in 2024, while the Grammy Awards drew only 15.4 million, down 9% from 2024 and 38% from 2016, despite positive reviews and several buzzy performances. (Note: Luminate and the Golden Globes are both part of the Penske Media Corporation brand portfolio — Luminate through PME TopCo., a joint venture with Eldridge, and the Golden Globes through Dick Clark Productions.)
While total viewership is a mixed bag, there are silver linings elsewhere this year. The Oscars saw a six-year ratings high and a 19% increase in its 18-49 demo share (3.92 in 2024 vs. 4.54 this year), likely thanks to the telecast streaming via Hulu for the first time.
The Golden Globes and Grammys, both also simulcast on streaming, broke even with 2024 for the 18-49 demo (1.8 and 3.9, respectively). And while this year’s Emmys demo numbers aren’t public yet, a press release from the Television Academy and CBS highlighted that viewership via Paramount+ was up 76% from 2021.
In other words, viewers, particularly younger viewers, are still willing and even eager to watch an awards show — as long as said show is available somewhere other than broadcast. An August AP-NORC survey gave further credence to this notion, as 61% of adults 18-44 reported watching a clip from an awards show at least once in the past year.
So, just as with late-night shows, younger viewers might not tune in for an entire awards show broadcast, but they will likely watch an SVOD stream or a snippet uploaded to YouTube.
With that in mind, watching the Oscars exclusively on YouTube is an odd idea but not an unreasonable one.
