The Golden Globes averaged 9.4 million viewers Sunday night, according to Nielsen, up from ratings for the 2023 ceremony but still significantly lower than viewership totals from just a few years ago. .
Until 2020, the Globes regularly attracted between 17 and 20 million viewers. In 2019, the Globes were closing the ratings gap with the Oscars so significantly that it looked like the telecast could become the most-watched awards show.
And then disaster struck.
First came the pandemic, which deprived the 2021 Globes of its usual free-wheeling, alcohol-soaked ceremony, causing ratings to plummet. Then came a scandal for the organization that runs the Globes, leading NBC to refuse to broadcast the 2022 ceremony. Last year, NBC gave the Globes a one-year chance and viewership numbers were still low: little more More than six million people saw them.
For months there was speculation that a streaming service like Netflix or Amazon could take over the rights to the Globes. That didn’t happen. In November, CBS acquired the rights for another one-year deal. (In a statement announcing the deal, George Cheeks, president of CBS, said the Globes could help promote scripted programming that had been delayed by last year’s strikes in Hollywood. Those shows will premiere next month.)
CBS announced a host, a relatively unknown Jo Koy, just a few days before Christmas.
Reviews of Koy were harsh, with critics especially taking issue with the comedian’s bizarre mid-monologue twist, in which he blamed other writers for some of his lame jokes. “Hey, I got the job 10 days ago, do you want a perfect monologue?” he said. “Hey, shut up. You are kidding, right? Decelerate. I wrote some of these and they are the ones you laugh at.”
Critics were not kind to the broadcast either. Vanity Fair called it a “near total disaster” and a critic for The Hollywood Reporter said it was “the most boring awards show” he had ever seen. The Ankler compared it to the “RC Cola of awards shows.”
