Are award shows rebounding from pandemic viewership lows? TheWrap processed the numbers
As the 2023 awards season comes to a close after Sunday’s Oscars, audiences for this year’s Academy Awards and Grammys moved even closer to pre-pandemic numbers than last year, while the Emmys and Golden Globes failed to improve on last year’s growth.
While the 95th ABC Academy Awards saw a 13% increase in total audience with 18.8 million viewers compared to 2022’s total audience of 16.7 million, the 2023 Grammys saw the biggest jump in viewership for CBS with a whopping 30.2% increase from the 2022 viewership of 9.6 million. to the 12.5 million viewers this year.
Music’s Biggest Night surpassed Hollywood’s Biggest Night for the title of highest enhanced viewership, marking a reversal from last year, as the 2022 Academy Awards surged 60.1% from 10, 4 million viewers from 2021, while the Grammys saw a slight 2.1% increase from the 2021 ceremony, which drew 9.4 million viewers.
Despite the continued uptick of the Academy Awards and Grammys, the Emmys cemented their place on the other side of the spectrum when the 2022 Emmys hit an all-time low of 5.9 million viewers for NBC. While the 2021 ceremony, which drew 7.8 million viewers, saw a 21.9% increase over the 2020 show, which drew 6.4 million viewers, the 2022 Emmys saw a decrease of 24.4% compared to last year.
The 2023 Golden Globes, which drew 6.3 million viewers in total, couldn’t compare to the 2022 ceremony that went without a telecast after NBC canceled his plans to convey the following Los Angeles Times investigation exposing systemic problems at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the maligned organization behind the awards. The ceremony saw a decline of 8.7% from 2021, when the show drew 6.9 million viewers.
Although the 13% increase in viewership for the Oscars paled in comparison to last year’s 60% increase in total viewers, Sunday’s telecast continued to recover closer to pre-pandemic numbers as the ceremony The 2019 show drew 29.6 million total viewers and the 2020 show drew 23.6 million viewers.
While the Academy Awards still have a long way to go to reach the audience achieved in 2019 and 2020, there was certainly an improvement over the 2021 awards ceremony, which posted an all-time low of 10.4 million. of viewers. At the time, the 2021 ceremony saw a 55.9% decline from the 2020 audience, making the impact of the pandemic clear.
The same can be said on the Grammy front, as this year’s 30.2% viewership increase indicates steady progress that could eventually carry over to the 2019 and 2020 ceremonies, which reached 19.9 million viewers. viewers and 18.8 million viewers, respectively. On the return of the pandemic, the 2021 awards show also suffered the same fate as the Oscars with a 50% decline in viewership from the previous year.
The Emmys, on the other hand, rebounded less than the Oscars and Grammys, with the 2022 show seeing a 7.8% decline compared to the 2020 ceremony, which drew 6.4 million viewers as the first Emmys that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. 19 pandemic. While all eyes are on the 2023 Emmys to boost their viewership, the awards face a smaller scale of growth, with the 2020 ceremony only seeing a 7.3% decline from the 2019 show, which drew to 6.9 million viewers.
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