What Would NPH Do?

Photo Courtesty of Variety

The 2009 Emmys made a bounce back both in terms of ratings and critical acclaim this year.

While the importance and overall impact of industry awards to audience members is questionable, it still seems holds a place in the hearts of industry insiders.

The Academy and show producers have been trying to increase viewership in the past couple of years. This year, they tapped Doogie Howser, How I Met Your Mother, Dr. Horrible, *takes a gasp of air* and Harold and Kumar star, Neil Patrick Harris to host last night's ceremony. NPH hosted the Tony Awards earlier this June to widespread critical acclaim and was tapped again for the Emmys in hopes of garnering the same viewership increase and response. He also served as producer for the telecast and brought along Mother scribe Joe Kelly as head writer.

Smart move. According the Variety, the show "posted credible numbers on CBS, rising roughly 10% in key demos vs. last year's record-low averages despite facing a monster NFL game on NBC... Even though the show and host Neil Patrick Harris received widespread critical acclaim, the audience declined with each half-hour. After opening with more than 15 million viewers at 8 p.m. (following a big NFL overrun and a shortened version of "60 Minutes"), the show wrapped with a little under 11 million viewers at 10:30 when lightly watched shows "30 Rock" and "Mad Men" walked away with the top prizes."

So what's the deal? Is it as Ming said in a couple posts below that Emmys place no importance in the viewers' minds? I think yes and no. There has always been a disconnect between everyday moviegoers and critics and therefore, the shows that get nominated are not always the ones that people watch. I am a huge fan of 30 Rock and was pleased to see it take home another award for Best Comedy (and was more than elated to see all five cast members receive nominations, with only Alec Baldwin walking away with a statue -- Fey walked away with one for her appearance as Sarah Palin in SNL), but win or lose, it would not have affected my viewership. Throughout the critical acclaim of Arrested Development, as much as I heard about all the hype surrounding the show, I didn't start watching the show (though I have since the show was canceled and am now a huge fan).

So what can the Academy and award show producers do? Obviously they've taken things in the right direction, starting with the host, but the ratings are still nowhere near where they used to be. Perhaps they should take cues from the Oscars and nominate more shows by including those with greater viewership (though do you really see Gossip Girl getting nominated for Best Drama?), but that risks the quality and prestige of the award in the eyes of the voting members. Maybe the show can be streamed live through the CBS website as well. Are you an awards show watcher? What do you think can be done to increase viewership?

PS: The best part of last night for me personally? Seeing Kristin Chenoweth take home the award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for her role is Olive Snook in Pushing Daisies, one of the best shows, in my opinion, to ever air on television. Shame it got canceled, but seeing her take home that award was a nice, bittersweet ending that provided this fan with some closure.

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Edited to Add:

After I finished writing this post and was walking to class, I was thinking more about it and came to the conclusion about how much more difficult it would be for television awards to gain viewership. For the Oscars, it wouldn't be impossible to watch every Best Picture nominee. For Grammys, there are certain singles that are released on the radios and an album takes an hour or so to get through. With television, it is an ongoing creative process where viewers have to come back weekly over the course of a couple of months. It requires a lot of time and dedication from viewers, so they only find a handful of shows to watch religiously. It would be virtually impossible to watch every single show, and most don't care about the shows they don't watch. So if you don't select the ones that are popular with viewers, they won't tune in to watch. Problem with television is, shows with high ratings don't generally generate critical praise. And there's the conflict that the Academy is going to have to solve.