On Thursday, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced that they were moving the Golden Globes to a Monday night showing on January 16th, 2006. This goes against their past broadcast history, the show having always been held and aired on a Sunday. This year’s offering, as well as those held since 1996, will be seen on the NBC network.
Why the bump to Monday night? Two words. Desperate Housewives. The wildly popular ABC television show trounced this year’s Golden Globes in the ratings. While many tuned in to see Desperate Housewives win awards such as Best Comedy Series and Best Comedic Actress for Teri Hatcher, many more switched on their television sets to watch the show itself. According to E! online, 24.1 million viewers in fact tuned in to watch the Housewives, while only 16.8 million turned in to watch the awards ceremony on NBC. Going against the popular show caused the Golden Globes ceremony to have a thirty-five percent dip in their ratings.
The 63rd annual Golden Globes are set to take place at the Beverly Hilton on what is marked on 2006 calendars as the day to celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday. Plans are in the works to mark this occasion during the broadcast. NBC says this bump to Monday will be tried for this event to see what happens. Future years might fall back to Sunday airing. The nominees won’t even be announced for this awards ceremony until December 13th.
Moving around of ceremonies is not uncommon. Some have switched nights and even months. The American Music Awards which had been airing for years in January moved in recent years to a November airing. The 78th annual Academy Awards have bumped the ceremony a whole week later to March 5th, 2006, so the show wouldn’t go head to head with the closing ceremonies of the 2006 Winter Olympics airing on NBC the night they were originally scheduled to air.
However, going against this one show isn’t what is hurting ratings of awards shows. Many have suffered in the ratings in recent years. Moving nights might help improve the ratings just a bit for the 63rd annual Golden Globes, but generally these shows appear to be losing their popularity. Popular past rating winners The Grammy’s and Emmy’s both experienced losses in the ratings this year, 25 percent and 20 percent, respectively.
Are awards shows losing popularity? Would people rather watch the show itself than watch those actors and actresses in that very show acknowledged on another network? Do you watch awards shows?
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