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I addressed my grievances with comedian Nate Bargatze’s performance as host in previous Emmys coverage, but let me rant summarize again: Despite an encouraging opening, I was wholly disappointed with his bit about donating $100,000 of his own funds to charity with the caveat that $1,000 would be deducted for every one second a winner exceeded their allotted 45 seconds of acceptance speech time (along with the inverse beindg true: $1,000 added for each one second under). This whole setup made me groan for several reasons. First, just give the winners their damn time. Second, the supposed threat of losing money for charity was hard to take seriously, as any outcome other than donating the full $100K promised would have been a PR disaster, so we knew there were no real consequences. And lastly, it was the only bit Bargatze had for the whole rest of the night, checking in on the tally way too often, thus wasting more time. So it was not surprising to see that when the ratings came in, the numbers were— Wait, what?! This Emmys had the highest ratings since 2021???
The 77th Emmy Awards put on a star-studded ceremony on Sunday night (September 14), and the live broadcast proved to be a ratings winner for CBS, with the awards show attracting its biggest audience in years.
According to Variety, citing Nielsen’s measurement of linear viewers on CBS and live streams on Paramount+, the 2025 ceremony brought in 7.4 million viewers, making it the most-watched Emmys since 2021. This was up 8% on last year’s ceremony, which aired on ABC in September 2024.
The 2025 Emmys, hosted by comedian Nate Bargatze, matched the 7.4 million viewers who watched the 2021, which also aired on CBS. In the years since, the show has aired on NBC, Fox, and ABC, none of which were able to beat CBS’ numbers.
Nielsen also noted that live streaming viewers increased by 76% compared to 2021.
It should be noted that the 75th Emmy Awards aired at the unusual time of January 2024, after it was moved from its scheduled September 2023 slot due to the Hollywood writer and actor strikes. This meant the ceremony went up against the NFL playoffs, resulting in record-low ratings with 4.3 million viewers.
Whelp, just add this to the ever increasing pile of things I don’t understand about the world today. How can it be that the Emmys airing on CBS draws in more viewers than the same awards show on other networks? And while we’re singling out CBS, here’s a reminder on how things ended Sunday night: after revealing the tally showed an abysmal negative $60K left in the pot, Bargatze announced, quelle surprise, that he would still donate money anyway, and raised the pot to $250K from him personally, while CBS chipped in an extra $100K. I’d question whether CBS felt any shame at being part of a billion-dollar conglomerate and yet donating less than half the amount from a comedian still working towards broader name recognition, but we already know the answer. For their part, The Boys & Girls Clubs of America are graciously over the moon about their windfall, which is even greater than $350K thanks to the exposure sparking an increase in donations from other sources. That is fantastic. My local polling place just so happens to be a B&G Club, which is how I routinely get in the door, despite being a wee bit north of “girl.”
I wonder how many people are tuned into CBS for football and then just watch the Emmys? It seems like there wouldn’t be a ton of overlap but people really hate changing the channel sometimes lol.
I’m surprised at these numbers because not only did I not watch (nor anyone I know) but I also barely saw the emmys talked about besides the ovation for Colbert. It seems like they were barely a blip on most people’s radars this year. But apparently not?
(I don’t think you can compare to the 75th Emmys though, the delay hurt the show a lot I think.)
Agree that this is very surprising. There wasn’t any reason for this year’s show to have such big numbers. The host was not that well-known to most, compared to other years (I know he’s quite famous and I had heard of him/watched his content but I don’t think he’s Tiny Fey/Amy Poehler or late night host level of fame).
Then there was the show itself…it was horrible and so boring. I confess I watched almost the whole thing but do you know why I did?? Brutal honesty here: I was waiting for it to feel like I wasn’t in the twilight zone. There was barely ANY diversity in the presenters. Only one winner said anything political in their acceptance speech. They brought out Sydney Sweeney…that said a lot. It really felt like I was watching state-run TV in a communist country. Everyone was trying to protect themselves/careers and not offend their great leader.
OT
Watched DWTS last night, kept trying to fast forward the commercials, then remembered it was regular TV.
The yapping is so annoying, had to use the mute button often.
The ratings are surprising. It was pretty boring and the comedian wasn’t funny.
He was such a cringe host, maybe it was like a train wreck that viewers couldn’t look away from?
It was an odd and awkward show. Especially that business with the money going to the Boys and Girls Club – it got old and uncomfortable. Like they were a corporate sponsor of the show.
Agreed. It was one of the worst Emmy’s I have watched. The host was so boring and unfunny.
I think it’s just the quality of the TV shows that were being nominated this year. Its been an exceptional year for television and people watched all of these shows as a means of escapism. So they were tuned in to see how their favourite actors were dressed, were they rewarded….
I think a similar thing happens with Oscars when there’s a year with lots of good movies
I mean I get it.
He’s popular.
That’s… kinda why they have him on SNL so often?