TV ratings
LONDON — The 2023 Brit Awards drew its biggest television audience in three years with 3.9 million viewers watching the show on Saturday Feb. 11, a rise of more than 1 million on the previous year, according to U.K. broadcaster ITV.
The 43rd edition of the Brits, the U.K.’s biggest music awards show, featured live performances from Harry Styles, Stormzy and Sam Smith & Kim Petras, among others, and was staged on a Saturday night for the first time in the Brits’ history.
The move from the Brits’ traditional mid-week slot to the weekend had the positive impact organizers were hoping for with the show — hosted by Mo Gilligan and broadcast live from London’s The O2 arena — drawing an average audience of 3.3 million viewers over its two-hour running time, peaking at 3.9 million. ITV says another 780,000 people watched the show via its on-demand streaming app ITVx.
In comparison, last year’s ceremony was watched by 2.7 million television viewers in the U.K., down from 2.9 million in 2021 — the Brits’ lowest-ever TV audience, according to industry publication Broadcast.
Despite this year’s ratings upturn, Saturday’s show is still the Brits’ third-smallest TV audience, failing to surpass the 4.4 million viewers that watched in 2020, and some distance behind the ceremony’s peak popularity at the turn of the millennium when around 9 million people would regularly tune in.
There are, nevertheless, positives that labels trade body BPI, which organizes the Brits, can take away from this year’s event. Saturday’s broadcast – where Styles enjoyed a clean sweep, winning all four awards for which he was nominated – attracted a 53% audience share of 16-34 year-olds, up from last year’s 33% share, according to ITV.
Music performances and show highlights streamed on the Brit Awards 2023 official YouTube channel have additionally generated around 3 million views in total in the 24 hours after the event, according to Billboard’s calculations.
The Brit Awards’ other digital partners include Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube Kids, Vevo and fan engagement platform Filmily, while Saturday’s show was live-streamed internationally on YouTube. BPI is due to release its digital audience figures later this week.
The CMA Awards grew their audience Wednesday, leading ABC to a ratings win Wednesday (Nov. 9).
Co-hosted by Luke Bryan and football star Peyton Manning, the 2022 awards brought in 7.57 million viewers, up from 6.83 million (an all-time low) in 2021 — an 11 percent gain. Wednesday’s telecast, which saw Luke Combs take home entertainer of the year and album of the year honors, was also up over the 2020 show’s 7.08 million viewers. Other big winners at the ceremony included Chris Stapleton (male vocalist of the year) and Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde (musical event of the year for “Never Wanted to Be That Girl”).
The CMAs slipped a little in the key ad demographic of adults 18-49, scoring a 1.05 rating (equivalent to about 1.37 million viewers in that age group) vs. 1.12 a year ago. The awards haven’t recovered much of their pre-pandemic draw yet — in 2019, ABC’s broadcast averaged more than 11 million viewers and a 2.0 rating in the 18-49 demo.
The CMA Awards also appeared to push down the audience for some of its competition on Wednesday. Fox’s The Masked Singer (3.16 million viewers, 0.55 in adults 18-49) and NBC’s Chicago Med (6.03 million, 0.58), Fire (6.19 million, 0.63) and PD (4.74 million, 0.53) all were below their same-day averages for the season so far. CBS’ Survivor (4.73 million, 0.72) and The Amazing Race (2.88 million, 0.39), on the other hand, edged up week to week.
A post-election edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News was the most-watched show on cable Wednesday, drawing 4.43 million viewers.
This story was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
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