Americans still give awards shows consideration, a new AP-NORC poll finds

The results suggest that some vitality remains in the seemingly stodgy old tuxedo-and-gown world of the Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, Tonys and Golden Globes, whose makers have fought to make them relevant when Americans have more entertainment and engagement choices than ever.

And they come at a moment when the Oscars and the Emmys have seen a short-term uptick in viewers after cultural shifts that brought a huge long-term drop in people gathering around a television to watch an awards show together.

“These days, it’s more focused on the performances,” said Walter Hanley, 69, who used to work in the music industry and still watches most music awards shows. “Back in the ’70s and ’80s when I would attend regional Grammys in person, it was more about the awards — sound engineering and producers and that kind of thing.”

Hanley thinks the pivot has helped awards shows keep up with the times. “You have to cater to what the viewers want,” he said.

Some awards shows have rebounded

The Oscars, which remain the most viewed and most engaged-with awards show, are coming off a five-year high in viewers. Nearly 20 million people watched “Anora” win best picture and four other top trophies in March.

But that's down from the more than 55 million who watched “Titanic” win 11 in 1998, when awards shows truly were the king of the world.

Some, like Christine Steingraber, 64, watch most of the awards shows that air on TV. The Oscars are her favorite, but she watches the Emmys and the Grammys, too, even when she’s not familiar with the shows or the artists up for awards.

“It opens up another perspective as to whether I want to see that show or hear that artist,” she said.

The biggest awards shows — like the Oscars, the Grammys and the Emmys — have streaming partners, but they generally don't appear there until the following day. By that point, viral moments and winners' reactions have already been plastered online in short clips.

The poll suggests that awards shows may be appealing to a new generation. People under the age of 45 are more likely to say they have watched both an awards show and clips in the past year, compared with people age 45 or older.

Clips help extend awards shows’ lives

Meme-able moments like the “La-La Land” fiasco or Will Smith’s slap at the Oscars or the hits and misses of Golden Globes monologues have shown the shows can still have life after social media took over for TV for many.

The survey found that the people who watched full awards shows largely overlap with clip viewers, although people are slightly more likely to say they’ve just watched clips rather than just watching shows. About 4 in 10 say they haven’t watched clips or shows.

Awards shows — whether they’re consumed through clips or live viewing – are more popular among Black and Hispanic adults than among white adults. About 7 in 10 Black and Hispanic adults say they’ve watched clips or at least most of a show in the past year, compared with just over half of white adults.

Shows including the BET Awards and the Latin Grammys have reached more targeted audiences, just as the MTV Video Music Awards became a way to bring young viewers into the awards audience starting in the mid-1980s.

Rose Lucas, 77, says she used to watch the BET Awards, because she enjoyed the R&B and hip-hop performances. She enjoys music awards shows, but she doesn't typically watch the full show live. She’s more likely to watch short clips of performances the next day.

“I don’t watch any of them live anymore. I don’t tune in to them,” Lucas said. “(They are) too long. I’m not as interested anymore.”

Most people aren’t watching frequently

When the Emmys return on Sunday, all eyes will be on the winners — and the ratings. The last Emmys got a much bigger boost than its predecessor, held in January 2024 because of Hollywood's strikes — one of several challenges including the coronavirus pandemic and this year's wildfires that have thrown awards show norms out of whack.

Television has in some ways overtaken movies as a prestige screen art, but that hasn't translated into similar awards prestige. The Emmys audience is less than half that of the Oscars.

The long-term awards ratings decline closely tracks with real-time broadcast and cable television viewing across the board for virtually everything in the U.S. but football.

And while there are dozens of awards shows each year, only a handful have a significant audience. The poll found that about 3 in 10 Americans said they had watched awards shows at least “several times" in the past year.

That could be a result of Americans having more options than ever in what to watch — and many being too busy to tune in.

Inez Parker, 88, said she watches awards shows on live TV, and she expects she'll tune into the Emmys this weekend. But she doesn't stream the show again or watch clips after the fact — she's too busy for that.

“I usually watch all of it,” she said. “I'll watch it live, and that's it. I don't watch it again.”

Thomson-DeVeaux reported from Washington. AP polling reporter Linley Sanders contributed to this report.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,182 adults was conducted Aug. 21-25, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.