Golden Globes Ratings Reportedly Much Lower Than Last Broadcast

The 2023 Golden Globes were held this week, with the broadcast being aired on NBC and Peacock. However, with the ratings now in, it's clear that the 80th Golden Globes had a significant decrease in viewership when compared to the 2022 Golden Globes broadcast. According to Nielsen ratings, the 2023 Golden Globes drew in 6.3 million viewers and a 1.1 rating, which was a drop of 9% and 26% (respectively) from what the awards ceremony did in 2022. 

This particular year of the Golden Globes is under particularly close scrutiny, as this was the first year the Golden Globes have returned to NBC since 2021. NBC broke from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association over controversies that included internal scandals that were leaking into the press (LA Times), as well as a notorious tradition of failing to add diversity to the HFPA. CBS took on the Golden Globes for 2022; when NBC aired the Globes in 2021, the result was 6.9 million viewers and a 1.5 rating. 

To be clear, none of these figures from 2023, 20233, or 2021 come close to what the Golden Globes was pulling in for ratings before the COVID-19 pandemic: For example, the 2020 Golden Globes (held in January that year) pulled in 18.3M viewers. It's a decline that Hollywood is seeing across the board for major awards shows, with the 2022 Emmys similarly seeing a 25% decline in viewership on NBC. 

Then again, there's also a lot of chatter online about NBC's scheduling decisions for the 2023 Golden Globes. The Globes were aired on a Tuesday this year, due to NBC's commitments to both NFL Sunday Night Football and the NCAA Championship Game on Monday night. That choice put the 2023 Golden Globes on an uphill slope, as a lot of casual viewers tend to associate awards show ceremonies with being Sunday night broadcasts. More to the point: Peacock's advertisement of the Golden Globes also streaming live on the platform was muted (at best), with many social media users expressing surprise that the Golden Globes were even on, once the hashtags and tweets started to flow along with the ceremony. 

For its part, NBC is spinning out a positive outlook about the 2023 Golden Globes. In a statement, NBC points out that the 2023 Golden Globes are the "most social special event across all of television season-to-date (linear and streaming), both in terms of social engagements and social video views," and that across all channels and platforms, the show "garnered nearly 11 million digital page views and video views, up +54% from 2021."

Did you watch the 2023 Golden Globes? 

Source: Variety