2022 Tony Awards ratings: down 35% from 2019, up 39% from 2021

This is not surprising, but the numbers are starting to come in and they are QUITE bad –– better than last year, predictably, but down 1.7 million from the previous Radio City ceremony hosted by James Corden.

(Yes, TV ratings are much different than they were 5-10 years ago, but this is still notably bad. The Tonys must accept that they will never be a ratings bonanza and its days on CBS may be numbered.)

COMPARISONS:

2022: 3.8 million
2021: 2.7 million
2019: 5.5 million
2018: 6.3 million
2017: 6 million
2016: 8.7 million (HAMILTON/Corden)
2015: 6.4 million

https://variety.com/2022/tv/ratings/tony-awards-ratings-tonys-2022-viewership-1235292423/

Updated On: 6/13/22 at 02:10 PM

Welp! The bar literally couldn’t have been lower.

Well, The Emmys cant make much more than 8M, so thats not really that bad

A 39% increase is very good. It wasn’t gonna magically jump back to pre-COVID numbers in one year y’all.

Call_me_jorge said: "How does the cbs telecast work? Does the league/wing and cbs have a contract through a specific year or is it based on a year by year basis with a new negotiation process every year?

"

From a 2017 Deadline article.

CBS Re-Ups With Broadway’s Tony Awards Through 2026 Under New Deal

https://deadline.com/2017/10/cbs-tony-awards-through-2026-new-deal-1202187002/

But...last year people were saying "Wow I cant believe it dropped so much". ...so you can use the same logic.

The ratings aren't surprising. The numbers for nearly all award shows have been in the gutter for the last few years. Even before the pandemic the audiences for the Oscars and the Emmys were declining. Not sure why anyone would expect the Tony ratings to be any different.

Honestly, even I, someone who is interested in entertainment the awards shows are a slog.

What they need to do is invite celebs to do like one number from a musical or something. Like I'd love to see a fully stage Kelly Clarkson as Annie Get Your Gun number, or Carrie Underwood or something. That way celebs can do something that isn't a huge time commitment and it's entertaining and would bring in views.

When it comes to Tony ratings, I think of this lyric from Title of Show:

"I'd rather be nine people's favorite things than a hundred people's ninth favorite thing."

It's always been an awards program with a niche audience and ratings for almost all awards programs are on the decline. Let it be produced in a manner to appeal most to people for whom it is their favorite thing.

If a show wants to reach a much larger audience, performing numbers on any of the morning shows or on Colbert, Fallon, Kimmel, or Cordon is the ticket.