Emmys ratings just hit a record low — again

During the opening monologue of the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday, comedian Colin Jost quipped that the audience watching at home consisted of merely "hundreds" of people. He was exaggerating — but not by as much as host network NBC would have hoped.

Per Nielsen, the company that measures television ratings, approximately 10.2 million people watched the 2018 Emmys, Deadline reports. That's over 1 million fewer viewers than watched in 2017, when 11.4 million people tuned in, per Variety. Indeed, 10.2 million is yet another new low for the television awards show; the 2016 ceremony drew what was then the smallest audience of all time with 11.3 million viewers, Variety reports, but that seems downright massive compared to 2018's dismal showing.

Lest one assume the ratings drop was simply because the show was on a Monday this year rather than a Sunday, the Emmys were also held on a Monday in 2014 — and that show scored 15.6 million viewers, Deadline reported at the time.

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Instead, television ratings have just been in steady decline across the board as consumers cut cable and grow disinterested in live events like awards shows. But as The Wrap points out, there's a silver lining: By dropping about 11 percent, this year's Emmys at least didn't see as sharp a ratings dip as the 2018 Oscars, which experienced a decline of 16 percent in 2018. So that's something.