Sunday’s broadcast of the Tony Awards averaged 3.5 million viewers, a decline of about 15 p.c from final 12 months, in response to preliminary scores knowledge from Nielsen.
Though not an enormous drop from the 2023 present, which reached a mean of 4.1 million viewers, the viewership was the second lowest for a Tonys telecast since data have been stored.
The decline bucks a development from different main award exhibits and dwell occasions, which have been piling up scores good points in recent times. The Oscars (19.5 million viewers in March) and Grammy Awards (16.9 million in February) have recorded three consecutive years of scores progress, as they climb out of the file lows of the early 2020s.
It additionally means the Tonys missed a chance to finest the Emmys. In January, the strike-delayed Emmy Awards notched simply over 4 million viewers, coming dangerously near the Tonys. A decade in the past, the Emmys had eight million extra viewers than the Tonys. The subsequent Emmys ceremony is in September.
The Tonys, which aired on CBS, featured performances by Alicia Keys and Jay-Z and included main wins for “Stereophonic,” “The Outsiders,” “Appropriate” and “Merrily We Roll Along.” The occasion acquired heat critiques from critics, together with Jesse Green of The New York Times, who known as it “an unlimited enchancment” over earlier years. Ariana DeBose hosted the present for a 3rd consecutive time.
Given their comparatively low viewership, the Tonys have lengthy been extra of a status play than an enormous moneymaker for CBS, which has been broadcasting the awards for the reason that late Nineteen Seventies. CBS is signed as much as air the Tonys by way of 2026.
The occasion can also be a crucial advertising and marketing software for Broadway, which remains to be struggling to match attendance figures from earlier than the pandemic.
The least-watched Tonys stay the pandemic-altered 2021 telecast, when fewer than three million individuals watched. The most-watched latest Tonys was the 2016, “Hamilton”-fueled present, which notched greater than eight million viewers.
