First some context. Sunday night the Emmys scooped up 12.4 million viewers. This was a broadcast network telecast, not cable. On cable, however, the season premiere of “Jersey Shore” managed to snag nearly 9 million viewers. That’s telling. Moreover, 21 million watched the Emmys in 2000 and the slide since has been a steep one.
What did Hollywood expect. They chose as their host Jane Lynch, the undeniably talented star of “Glee,” a show that is only a pop culture phenomenon because pop culture writers who agree with its politics say so (9 to 11 million viewers is not a phenom). Furthermore, “Glee” is a highly partisan enterprise that gleefully (see what I did there?) and regularly goes out of its way to insult the large majority of Americans who are not liberal. This large majority of Americans is also known as — wait for it, wait for it — The Customers.
It wasn’t the worst ratings performance in Emmys history, but Fox’s broadcast Sunday of the “63rd Primetime Emmy Awards” was down about 8% from 2010.
According to preliminary figures released Monday from Nielsen, 12.4 million viewers tuned in to the show, hosted by “Glee” star Jane Lynch.
Jimmy Fallon’s hosting turn in 2010, which netted 13.5 million viewers for NBC, was possibly aided by the Peacock Network’s decision to move the telecast to Aug. 29 to avoid a conflict with its “Sunday Night Football.”
The lowest-rated Emmys came in 2008 and 1990, when only 12.3 million viewers tuned in to TV’s biggest night.
All America is doing, Hollywood, is not liking you back. This is not a difficult code to crack.