Are We Witnessing the Collapse of Wokeism? Emmy Viewership May Forecast Dire Fate
As woke awards shows continue their politically correct posturing, the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards reached a new ratings low on Monday night.
According to Deadline, the awards show aired for just over three hours on Monday night. It drew only 5.92 million viewers on NBC, which was an all-time low.
The numbers were down 19 percent from last year, when the 73rd Emmy Awards aired on CBS on a Sunday night.
Predictably, left-leaning Deadline attempted to provide a myriad of excuses for the low ratings.
The outlet suggested the show’s ratings suffered because it aired on a Monday instead of a Sunday, streamed on Peacock and went up against ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” 2022 debut that saw the Seattle Seahawks defeat the visiting Denver Broncos.
“[W]ith the Emmys airing on a Monday for the first time since 2018, a very different digital landscape today, declining award shows attraction and that NFL counterprogramming, almost no one expected the 2022 ceremony to achieve any audience heights,” Deadline reported.
That seems to be a bit of revisionist history, considering NBC gave hosting duties to “Saturday Night Live” star Keenan Thompson. The network ran commercials for weeks leading up to the Emmys, and one of them referred to the event as “TV’s biggest night.”
It was also not an apt comparison to last year’s broadcast on CBS. Despite the fact that the awards program had to compete with NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” and streamed on Paramount+, which could have hurt viewership numbers, it still drew almost 20 percent more viewers than this year’s show.
The Emmys have also aired on a Monday before, most recently during the 70th edition of the awards show in 2018. NBC aired that show as well, and it drew 41 percent more viewers than the 74th edition on Monday, according to Deadline.
Make no mistake — NBC did everything it could to try and make the Emmys a success in 2022. It couldn’t be done.
Of course, there is a very simple reason for the large decline in viewers: The entertainment industry has gone woke.
Sure, “Monday Night Football” and Peacock streaming could have also contributed to the viewership decline. But to ignore wokeness as a contributing factor would be to deny reality.
“No one at the Emmys is interested in entertaining the viewing audience,” Breitbart reporter John Nolte wrote in an opinion article. “The bitter, bigoted narcissists are only interested in signaling their own virtue to one another.”
As has become common in seemingly every Hollywood awards show, the Emmy’s featured a thinly veiled jab at former President Donald Trump.
“Really, what an audience you are,” actor Martin Short said while presenting an award. “I wish I could box you up and take you home like classified White House documents.”
Even the throng of gray-haired Hollywood elites seemed to be feigning laughter at the line, as did Short’s “Only Murders in the Building” co-star Selena Gomez.
It’s a sad statement on the overall quality of the program — which was widely panned by critics — that the moment when Short, Gomez and comedian Steve Martin were on stage was one of the evening’s comedic highlights.
Kinda wishing Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez were hosting the #Emmys pic.twitter.com/bwaGVvKOUn
— Jarett Wieselman (@JarettSays) September 13, 2022
Then came the acceptance speech from “Abbott Elementary” star Sheryl Lee Ralph, who used her time to sing a portion of “Endangered Species” and talk about how oppressed she feels.
Woah….. Sheryl Lee Ralph really took us to church with her amazing acceptance speech at the #emmys last night! 🙏👏🙏👏 pic.twitter.com/o6UmM2CiYw
— Anthony Buchanan (@anthonyscountry) September 13, 2022
Americans do not want to hear leftist television stars feel sorry for themselves, whether it’s on a Sunday, Monday or any other day of the week. That is why the Emmys continue to lose viewers with each passing year.
It’s no wonder many Americans would much rather watch “Monday Night Football.”
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