21.09.2020
16:08
About 6.1 million viewers followed the unusual gala on Sunday night. With the nominees in their homes, the show failed to attract the usual number of viewers.
By ReutersSeptember 21, 2020 Share on FacebookShare Share on TwitterTweet Share on WhatsAppShare
The participation of Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox during the 72nd edition of the Emmy Awards (AP)
The Emmy Awards ceremony, held virtually due to restrictions imposed by the new coronavirus pandemic, registered the smallest audience in the history of the gala.
With few surprises, except for Zendaya’s shocking triumph in the Best Actress category in a television drama for her role in “Euphoria,” host Jimmy Kimmel and winners isolated by the pandemic failed to generate interest.
With or without a pandemic, the great prizes in general, and the Emmy in particular, have been falling for several years in their television audience, accumulating all-time lows without brake.
According to preliminary data, the consulting firm Nielsen pointed out that 6.1 million viewers watched the Emmy in the United States on Sunday, which represents a further decrease from the historical low that was registered in 2019, when the television awards had an audience of 6.9 million he harvested last year at Fox . On this occasion the ceremony was broadcast on ABC , although it is not believed that the drop in audience is due to this change.
In this particular case, the virtual format was added to the fact that the show was held without a red carpet or live audience.
With Jimmy Kimmel as presenter at an empty Staples Center in Los Angeles, the 2020 edition of the Emmy Awards was experienced within the audiovisual industry as a testing ground for what might happen in the future at other award galas such as the Oscars, the Grammy or the Golden Globes.
The virtual Emmy 2020 gala had the worst audience in its history
In the purely competitive part, “Watchmen” was the big winner of the night with eleven awards and was crowned best miniseries. Behind was “Schitt’s Creek,” which won nine statuettes and made history by winning each and every major comedy award (including Best Series, Best Actor for Eugene Levy, and Best Actress for Catherine O’Hara). . “Succession” was chosen as the heir to “Game of Thrones” by winning the best drama series. The history of the Roy family he was left with five statuettes : best series, best direction (Andrij Parekh), best lead actor (Jeremy Strong), best guest actress (Cherry Jones) and best screenplay (Jesse Armstrong).
The idea of the organizers was to reinvent themselves to have a more informal and fun gala. Kimmel, who has a great influence on the media and social networks, baptized this peculiar ceremony as “Pand-Emmy”. The broadcast featured live reactions from the nominees from their homes and in other locations around the world . Despite the great technical effort, many failures were recorded during the live.
Additionally, Kimmel was assisted by co-hosts. The nominee Jennifer Aniston stole all the attention in the last edition of the awards by going on stage with a fire extinguisher and, minutes later, by showing up with her friends and former “Friends” companions, Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow, from his Los Angeles mansion.
The Emmys were the second awards with a sharp drop in viewership this year. The 2020 VMAs, the first live ceremony held during the COVID-19 pandemic, drew just 6.4 million viewers last month.
