Strikes-Delayed Emmys' Audience Hits New Low Opposite NFL Playoff Game

Fox's Monday-night broadcast of the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards averaged 4.3 million total viewers, down 27% from the September 2022 ceremony to mark a new all-time audience low for TV's starriest night.

In the demo, the Emmys pulled a 0.85 rating, down 23% from last year's 1.1.

The 75th Emmys ceremony, which was pushed back four months due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that were still afoot in September, faced significant competition in the form of the Philadelphia Eagles-Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL playoff game (which drew more than 16 million viewers on ABC alone) and news coverage of the Iowa Caucus (which had a total cable news audience of 4.7 million).

That said, the Emmys did give Fox its most-watched unscripted Monday telecast in over eight-and-a-half years (excluding sports) and the network's most-watched Monday with entertainment programming in over a year-and-a-half. 

At Monday night's Emmys ceremony, Succession's farewell run scored six big wins, including for Outstanding Drama and two lead acting categories. FX/Hulu's The Bear, which at the Emmys was eligible for its first season, also grabbed gold six times, including for Outstanding Comedy, lead actor, and in both supporting actor categories.

And among the limited series/TV-movie contenders, Netflix's BEEF — which has been pretty darn unbeatable this awards season — earned three big wins.

All told, The Bear was the winningest program at this year's Emmys, racking up 10 total wins (including those picked up at the Creative Arts ceremonies). BEEF and HBO's The Last of Us followed with eight total wins, while Succession had the aforementioned six.

Emmys host Anthony Anderson's TV theme songs-themed monologue and the show as a whole earned average TVLine reader grades of "B."