Emmys’ Nielsen Ratings Sink, But Apple Triumphs

The Emmy Awards were this week and there were several things notable about them.

The first was that the ratings were down. By a lot—around 10% from last year, but about where they were in 2024.

To put a number to that though, only 6.7 million people tuned in.

Which is a lot less than the 36 million who watched the 1986 Emmys.

While I let that number sink in, I will share that NBCU reported that social media engagement surged, generating 133 million views (a 90% increase from 2025).

Which is not nothing, but a tweet or an influencer post is still not the same thing as an eyeball in front of the TV. If nothing else, the social media stars are incentivized by the halo effect of posting about celebrities.

The second is that Apple TV dominated the event, winning 29 awards to HBO’s 21. Its mystery-comedy (comedy-mystery?) Widow’s Bay, which took home 14 statues, played a big role, but other shows like Pluribus and Margo’s Got Money Troubles helped too.

Then there was the fact that the broadcast networks got shut out of all the major awards. (In years past, ABC’s Abbott Elementary had managed to save the day for them in one category or another.)

And no, PBS’s Antiques Roadshow win for Outstanding Structured Reality Program does not count.

Finally, there was the fact that hardly anyone seemed all that familiar with all of the nominated shows. There was a sense that the Academy was awarding a somewhat random collection of shows and many people I spoke with said they harbored a sneaking suspicion that few of the people who did the voting had actually seen all the nominated shows, given the sheer volume of them.

And The Bear keeps getting nominated as a comedy, though this year it was shut out.

Why It Matters

Welcome to the Age of Feudal Media. (Wow, that would make a great title for a book.)

But seriously, there’s no clearer sign of the monoculture collapsing than the collapse of television into a series of disconnected bubbles, none of which seem to have a whole lot of overlap.

Hence all the confusing category titles like the aforementioned “Structured Reality” show.

Ditto the seeming disappearance of traditional TV “seasons,” the September to June runs that once defined the TV year and hence the award shows.

All that is gone now, which is likely why so much of the audience is too.

There’s not much appeal in watching a contest where you’re unfamiliar with most of the contestants.

We’ve gone from a world where everyone knew all of the other shows nominated in a particular category to a world where knowing the other nominees can be seen as a sign of bar trivia champion level geekiness.

And what is most telling is that it seems to mark the end of us viewing the television industry as a whole, at least from a consumer POV. We have been freed from the Television Industrial Complex, that all-consuming behemoth that created the seemingly capricious schedules that dictated the patterns of our lives.

We are our own bosses now, for better or for worse, at least when it comes to what we watch on TV and when. And so what was once a shared near-universal experience is now a deeply personal one. 

That cuts both ways, but it is why shows like the Emmys and the Oscars are unlikely to ever recover their former glory.

The second piece worth discussing here is Apple TV’s newfound dominance over the awards season. 

It’s notable in that no one quite knows what to think about Apple. They’ve got an impressive line-up of first-run hits, Ted Lasso being the best known. But they have no library whatsoever and that prevents them from being seen as a real competitor to companies like Netflix or Disney.

There are rumors, more or less weekly, that they are about to buy this company or another. 

Yet nothing ever develops from it. 

Sort of like the oft-predicted Apple TV set of the early and mid-10s that never materialized.

Which is not to minimize what Apple has done. They’ve created shows that satisfy critics without leaving the masses scratching their heads because they don’t really get it.

This, if you recall, was the slam against “Peak TV”--that it was, as a famous leaked memo from a highly-placed Hollywood executive noted, “snobby shows that nobody watches.”

Apple’s shows are anything but snobby, and yet they manage to stand out in a way that is very on-brand for Apple. Or at least for the brand that Apple sees itself as. Which may be just as well.

What You Need To Do About It

If you are the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences, aka the people who put out the Emmys, I’d say it’s time to totally rethink the show so that it works for our Feudal Media age.

Meaning assume that people are not familiar with most of the shows their show is competing with and try and introduce an element of serendipity into the mix: give people a chance to discover something they might never have thought they’d enjoy.

If you are one of the media companies whose shows are entered into the Emmys, same note. You can’t assume people outside of certain bubbles are even aware your show exists, so conduct your campaigns in a way that acknowledges that.

If you are Apple TV, take a bow for doing so well this year.

I’d say you might want to figure out what you want to be when you grow up, but truth is, you really don’t.

Your fans are happy with you like this, as just appointment TV, and whatever you are doing is working.

Mostly it seems you are using Apple TV as a marketing device, a way to remind viewers of Apple’s core values of thrift, kindness and, of course, white.