Emmy TV Ratings Down 10% From Last Year

Taylor Swift, Noah Kahan and the original Charlie’s Angels couldn’t help prevent a ratings drop-off for Monday night’s 68th annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

The Mariska Hargitay-hosted ceremony, which aired on NBC and Peacock, was down 10% from last year with 6.7 million total viewers. This was some 720,000 viewers down from the 7.42M that tuned in to watch the Nate Bargatze-hosted show on CBS last year.

The viewership figure is largely in line with the 2024 ceremony, which aired on ABC, which saw 6.87M tune in.

It may well be the last time we see ratings numbers for the Emmys after it emerged that Amazon was in talks to land TV rights to the TV awards show beginning next year.

The numbers were better for NBC than the last time the Comcast-owned broadcaster had the Emmys: The 2022 ceremony, hosted by SNL’s Kenan Thompson, drew 5.92M viewers.

One of the main challenges for NBC, which airs the Emmys on a Monday night to avoid its own Sunday Night Football (which this weekend saw the New York Giants beat the Dallas Cowboys), is that it went up again Monday Night Football, where a newly healthy Patrick Mahomes helped the Kansas City Chiefs destroy the Denver Broncos 31-10.

The company can take solace from the fact the Emmys was the most-watched Monday entertainment telecast of 2026 in total viewers and the 18-49 demo. It was also higher than the 4.4M that tuned in the last time the ceremony was on a Monday, though that was the 2024 ceremony on Fox, which didn’t air until January as a result of the strikes.

NBCUniversal doesn’t break out streaming ratings, but extrapolating the data suggests that around 500,000 people watched the Emmys on Peacock. The company said it was the “best ever reach” for a non-holiday NBC entertainment special simulcast on Peacock, behind only the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.