The Golden Globes experienced its first spike in the ratings game since 2020 as the annual awards show on Sunday had a 50 percent over last year’s dismal viewership.
With a move to the CBS network and a lead-in from the NFL, the Golden Globes averaged 9.4 million viewers, based on time zone-adjusted fast national ratings from Nielsen, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The 2024 show was up from the 6.25 million viewers who watched last year on NBC, marking the second-smallest audience in the network’s 28 years of broadcasting the awards show.
ngl i never found Jo Koy funny and what he said at the golden globe was actually why the barbie movie was made, because of sexist comments like those. It has come out that even the cast hated the joke and I understand why, never hand this man a mic again. pic.twitter.com/qV8aiFb2Ij
— SavLeftUs (@SavHasLeftUs) January 9, 2024
Last year’s show barely beat the worst-rated televised show in 2008, when a press conference was held in place of the star-studded event amid a writers strike.
The NFL lead-in of the Buffalo Bills beating the Miami Dolphins 21-14 helped the awards show numbers, THR noted.
While the higher ratings are a reason for CBS to celebrate, the numbers are still way below pre-pandemic viewership. To put the 9.4 million viewers into context, the Golden Globes previously pulled in an average of nearly 19 million viewers between 2008 and 2019, the Los Angeles Times noted.
Despite the improvement in the ratings, viewers took to social media and widely panned the 2024 host Jo Koy.
“‘Oppenheimer’ and ‘Barbie’ are competing for cinematic box office achievement,” Koy said from the stage on Sunday. “‘Oppenheimer’ is based on a 724-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project, and ‘Barbie’ is based on a plastic doll with big boobies.”
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His comments fell flat with the performers in the room and viewers at home. Koy responded to the criticism and online backlash, saying, “You know, it was a moment that I’ll always remember. It’s a tough room.”
“It was a hard job, I’m not going to lie … I’d be lying if [I said] it doesn’t hurt … Hosting is just a tough gig,” he added. “Yes, I’m a standup comic but that hosting position it’s a different style. I kind of went in and did the writers’ thing. We had ten days to write this monologue. It was a crash course. I feel bad, but I got to still say I loved what I did.”
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