Emmy Ratings... Out! Smallest Audience Since 1990

• Sep 17, 2007 04:07 PM ET
• by Matt Mitovich

Matt here, operating on perhaps four hours of sleep. And you all have me doing math on top of it? Oh, it's all good. My 30 Rockers got their due.

Anywho... the Nielsen overnights indicate that Sunday's Emmy Awards telecast averaged 13.06 million total viewers. That skinny sample represents not only an 18 percent drop from last year's pre-Labor Day installment but, much more dubiously, the show's smallest audience since 1990 (when about 12.3 mil people watched as L.A. Law and Murphy Brown won for best drama and comedy). Even Fox itself, in its just-released ratings spin, cops to the fact that the Emmys ranked No. 2 to NFL Football among adults 18-49, 18-34 and teens.

That said, the audience is rather impressive when you consider that more than a few hundred stuck around after that endless Don't Forget the Lyrics spoof.

Related: Inside the Emmys: All the Dish from TV Guide's After-party!