Awards Show Ratings Continue to Plummet, Are You Still Watching? (POLL)

The awards show landscape has been looking pretty grim in 2021 as annual ceremonies continue to lose viewership.

While the last year has seen shifts in scheduling and declines in network viewing, the downward spiral is a trend that’s been happening for a while now. Nearly every widely-televised awards show this year has lost viewers save for a few exceptions.

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Is This the End of the Oscars as We Know Them? (POLL)

Following the iHeart Radio Music Awards on May 27, we’re taking a look at the biggest ceremonies and their ratings from the past year and asking the question, are you still tuning in for awards shows?

As per usual, the year kicked off with the Golden Globe Awards which captured a measly 6.9 million viewers, a big drop from the 18.4 million viewers who tuned into the 2020 telecast. The Grammys saw a similar drop with a 1.9 rating in the key 18-49 demo, delivering 7.9 million viewers, a noticeable decline in comparison to the 2020 ceremony’s 16.5 million viewers.

The Oscars experienced its lowest ratings ever for the 2021 event airing in April. Only 9.85 million viewers tuned in to see films like Nomadland and Promising Young Woman recognized with a 1.9 rating in the key demo. That’s less than half of the 23.6 million people who tuned into the 2020 event which had a marginally higher rating of 5.3.

(Credit: ABC/AMPAS)

According to Nielsen figures, the Academy of Country Music Awards (ACM Awards) also saw a slip in ratings with just 6.3 million tuning in to the broadcast in comparison to the 6.6 million who watched in 2020. The Billboard Music Awards also drew in just 2.8 million viewers with a 0.1 drop in the key demo ratings, delivering 0.7 among ages 18-49.

Each drawing in less than a million viewers apiece, this year’s SAG Awards and Critics Choice weren’t big winners either. The only relative winners in the ceremony category include the MTV Movie & TV Awards and the iHeart Radio Music Awards. MTV’s event drew in 1.3 million viewers among the 18-34 demo, a reported rise from the prior year’s MTV Movie & TV Awards: Greatest of All Time special.

The 2020 iHeart Radio Music Awards pulled in less than a million viewers in comparison to this years reported 1.7 million. So, where do you stand when it comes to awards shows. Are you still tuning in? Let us know in the poll and comments section, below.