Golden Globes Ratings Fell So Hard It Left a Sizeable Crater in the Earth

Jeff Christensen

Did you watch the Golden Globes? Well, don’t worry. No one else did, either.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Golden Globes was a rating disaster that resulted in far more than half its viewership finding better things to do, making it the worst-rated Golden Globes in NBC’s history. In fact, it wasn’t even the most viewed show on the network that night:

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The network’s broadcast of the awards averaged just 6.91 million viewers and a 1.52 rating among adults 18-49 (adjusted up from 5.42 million and 1.2 in the fast nationals). The ceremony fell by 62 percent in total viewers and nearly 68 percent in the 18-49 demographic from the 2020 Golden Globes, which drew 18.33 million viewers and a 4.7 in the 18-49 demo. (Last year’s awards aired in their usual early January slot and benefited from an NFL playoff game as a lead-in.)

The last time the Golden Globes had anywhere near this small an audience was in 2008, when the writers strike forced the cancellation of the usual star-packed ceremony. A televised press conference announcing the winners drew a little over 6 million viewers.

Other than that, Sunday’s show delivered by far the smallest audience for the awards since NBC acquired rights to the Globes in 1996. The prior low for the awards, excluding the strike year, was 14.86 million in 2009. The Globes ceremony wasn’t even the most watched show on Sunday: CBS’ 60 Minutes (8.13 million viewers) and The Equalizer (7.78 million million) both drew more viewers.

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To be fair, the only thing about the night that was remotely entertaining was the returning duo of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as hosts, but even they couldn’t save the abysmal showing of what turned out to be a preachy zoom meeting, with stars not even capable of showing up due to COVID-19 laws and broadcasting live from their own homes.

When it wasn’t being a yawn-fest, we were treated to finger-wagging at the Hollywood Foreign Press for not having any black members (something that became the theme for that night) and it didn’t start off well with the first award recipient praising a Marxist leader. Later on, Sacha Baron Cohen would make a groaner joke at Trump’s expense, and that would be the sole political crack of the night.

The only real entertaining part of the broadcast was when the pets of stars would show up and make the awkwardness of it all a little less so.

As far as why it tanked, it’s easy to guess. Award shows were already on a downward spiral and have been for years now. The preachiness of Hollywood has gotten to unbearable levels, to a point where Ricky Gervais made it a point in his last time hosting the ceremony to make it clear to the clueless celebrities that they have no right telling Americans what’s important and how they should be living their lives.

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It definitely didn’t help that COVID-19 took away a lot of the glitz and glamour that comes with these award shows, but even if they did have everything as they normally did, it’s likely that a decline would have happened anyway. Watching hypocrites in dresses and suits that cost thousands of dollars telling you that what you believe in is not only wrong but evil isn’t exactly a good use of one’s time.

Many just don’t want to help these people pat themselves on the back.

 

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