Emmys Hits 4-Year Viewership High, Achieving Best Audience Since Last Time CBS Hosted

The 77th Emmy Awards may not have been “a big one like 75 or 80,” as host Nate Bargatze put it during last night’s ceremony, but it was the most-watched in years.

Back on its regular annual schedule, after pulling double-duty last year thanks to the strike-delayed January ceremony, the Emmys drew 7.42M viewers across CBS and Paramount+, marking a four-year viewership high, according to early Nielsen data. It was up 8% from the 76th iteration on ABC last year.

It’s also on par with the last time CBS hosted the Emmys in 2021 (which also posted about 7.4M viewers), coming off of the virtual 2020 ceremony that posted what was then the lowest audience ever for the award show. Fox’s strike-delayed 75th ceremony in January 2024 now holds the record for all-time lowest Emmys audience as just 4.3 million people tuned in. 

This time, Paramount Global says that live streaming on Paramount+ was up +76% from the last CBS-hosted event.

This is a promising enough sign that the Emmys could be back on the up-and-up. There is no doubt the show has struggled in recent years, perhaps a sign of the times as the rest of the TV landscape also recalibrated. Who’s to say whether this will translate year-over-year, though, considering there were quite a few fan-favorite contenders this go-round, which no doubt enticed more people to tune in.

RELATED: Emmys 2025: The Highs & The Lows Of The 77th Ceremony

It was a big night for HBO/Max’s rookie medical show The Pitt, which won Outstanding Drama Series and saw wins for two of its stars Noah Wyle and Katherine LaNasa. Wyle took home the Lead Actor win on his seventh career nomination, while LaNasa stunned in the Supporting Actress category.

Netflix’s juggernaut limited series Adolescence won a leading six trophies tonight, including three for writer, producer and star Stephen Graham, and Apple TV+’s The Studio scored four, capped off by Outstanding Comedy Series.

See the full list of winners here. In addition to the night’s biggest moments on camera, Deadline was in attendance at the ceremony to catch everything that went down where and when the cameras weren’t rolling. Here’s what we saw.

RELATED: 10 Things The Emmy Cameras Didn’t Catch — From Stephen Colbert’s MVP Status To The Cheers For Hannah Einbinder’s “Free Palestine” Message

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