Week over week, television viewers are making a clear statement that they want to be entertained, not lectured. Continuing the trend of diminishing viewers, the Emmy Awards, and Sunday Night Football, saw a ratings crash on Sunday night.

Jimmy Kimmel made his third Emmy appearance when he hosted the 72nd Prime time Emmy Awards on Sunday. The show’s ratings posted a record low for the small screen’s biggest night.

*Events have multiple platforms and mutli-media outlets - all seeing declines in viewership*

Just like last year, the Emmys were facing off against Sunday Night Football. The broadcast hit an all-time ratings low, dropping 14% in viewers and 33% among adults 18-49 from the previous all-time low of last year. The ratings are even more concerning to producers when they compare year over year, as last nights show was down 47% in viewership, and 60% in the key demo, from the numbers of the 2016 ceremony.

Sunday Night Football did not do much better. Historically the highest-rated program of the year, Sunday Night Football is a closely watched barometer for NFL ratings.

Sunday night’s game was a marquee matchup of the Patriots and Seahawks, a game that came down to the final play. Even so, ratings were down from last week.

The Patriots-Seahawks game drew 12.22 million viewers in initial metrics and 3.5 in the ratings in the most prized age demographic between 7 and 11 p.m. That is down 17% in audience and 25% percent in the specific demographic from last week’s numbers.

The numbers are down, but that does not tell the full story.

First, the numbers will fluctuate over the next few days as final data is collected. Ratings are often lower in initial returns, as not all markets report in before the figures are made public, and all out-of-home viewing doesn’t come in until later in the week.

Out-of-home viewing brings up the second part of the story. 2020 is the first year that ratings started to include out-of-home viewing numbers. The fact is, consumers spend half of their waking hours away from home, but that doesn’t mean they spend that much time away from the TV. In fact, TV viewing happens both in and out-of-home, and that means media companies are missing out if they’re only tracking in-home viewing.

The addition of out-of-home numbers being added to the ratings only adds to the concern among producers. The addition of those numbers should cause viewer numbers to rise, in some cases, quite dramatically. But the numbers didn’t rise, they fell.

There is another aspect we are all too familiar with. Due to the ongoing coronavirus closures throughout the country, the number of activities outside the home, which would take viewers away from broadcasts, has been greatly reduced. Therefore, people are forced to stay home, which should help drive viewership numbers up, but it hasn’t.

As data is compiled, producers are starting to see another alarming trend. The reduced ratings are not limited to television. All of these events have multiple platforms and mutli-media outlets tied to them, and all are recognizing a decline in viewership.

As much as anyone, producers want to know why this is happening as revenue is tied to ratings. One thing the survey results all seem to have in common, is that people turn to television events for entertainment, not social justice or political lectures. It is their way to get away from all of that, relax and have fun. Survey averages indicate that as many as 32% of viewers are not watching events that launch into, what they refer to as, pushed agendas or political propaganda.

The surveys showed another interesting result. A large number of those who most vocally stand in support of the messaging being promoted, don’t watch the programs on a regular basis. Those who don’t want to see these messages during the events are the viewers that watch the programs consistently. Although these statistics are largely focused on the sporting events, they create a very challenging dilemma for producers.

KPGZ News – Jim Dickerson contributed to this story with data from Nielsen, Deadline, Survey Monkey, Yahoo Sports and Variety