It was the Emmys or watch Shamwow! commercials.
Hardly! The Dallas Cowboys were opening a can of whoop ass on the Green Bay Packers, and the New York Yankees were playing their last game at Yankees Stadium.
Posted on 09/22/2008 11:25:31 AM PDT by Paleo Conservative
Reality bit for the Emmys.
If ratings estimates hold, last night's show could go down as the least-watched Emmy telecast on record.
From 8-11 p.m., the ABC telecast averaged 12.2 million, down 6 percent from last year's Nielsen-challenged affair, and on par with the record-low 12.3 million who caught the show in 1990.
This year was the fourth straight year of ratings decline for the Emmys, which last topped 20 million viewers in 2000.
Judging by the numbers, slightly more people were interested in this year's Emmy telecast than last, at least until the show started.
ABC's Jimmy Kimmel-hosted red-carpet preshow, which aired from 7-8 p.m., averaged 4.6 million viewers, up a tick from the 4.4 million Fox scored for its preshow in 2007.
Last night's show took hits from critics, and even Emmy winners, for its emphasis on reality TV as embodied by its squadron of reality TV hosts: Survivor's Jeff Probst; Project Runway's Heidi Klum; American Idol's Ryan Seacrest; Dancing with the Stars' Tom Bergeron; and Deal or No Deal's Howie Mandel.
my wife likes to watch to look at the dresses. Otherwise, I don’t know why anyone watches.
No talent big mouths = no viewers
The Emmys: Brief applause and sustained fury
by Peter Ames Carlin, The Oregonian
Monday September 22, 2008, 7:21 AMBefore the hate in this column really kicks into gear, we'll start with a few mitigating factors that kept the 60th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards from qualifying its viewers for a federal bailout.
AMC's terrific, yet underwatched, period drama "Mad Men" was rightfully proclaimed the year's best drama. Series creator and executive producer Matthew Weiner also won a trophy for writing the pilot script.
NBC's laugh-out-loud funny, yet underwatched, sitcom "30 Rock" won a shelf-load of major awards in the comedy division, including nods for lead actor, lead actress and writing.
Other nice moments: big awards for FX's tautly composed, all-star drama "Damages"; and an acting trophy for Bryan Cranston's work on AMC's daring "Breaking Bad" -- though in the glass-half-empty department, Cranston's victory meant defeats for Michael Emerson from "Lost" and John Slattery from "Mad Men."
Other than that, the three-hour Emmy presentation was not only awful, but gratingly so. Poorly conceived, badly executed, a failure by every possible aesthetic and (I'd argue) commercial standard.
It's hard to know where to begin. Probably at the beginning, with Oprah Winfrey's alarmingly self-adoring intro. All due respect to Oprah, who after all invented movable type, representational democracy and lollipops. But when she compliments herself (not inaccurately, either) for being a one-person sustainer of American literacy, it would be nice if she didn't hold for her applause until the audience actually begins applauding.
Still, Oprah's need for affirmation barely registered when measured against the endless, and endlessly unamusing, shtick by the five co-emcees, all of them nominees in the night's reality show host category.
It's one thing to think that a year's worth of TV excellence can and should be steered by the hosts of "American Idol," "Survivor," "Dancing With the Stars," "Project Runway" and "Deal or No Deal." But even if this is conceptually cool -- which, let's face it, it isn't -- you've still got to deal with the simple fact that having Ryan Seacrest, Jeff Probst, Tom Bergeron, Heidi Klum and Howie Mandel all standing on one stage amounts to little more than four vaguely unhappy people all standing around mutely while the fifth one jabbers into the camera.
And when that fifth person turns out to be Mandel, there are way more than four unhappy people watching.
Mandel went on at such length, in fact, that a significant percentage of the presenters who followed were forced to explain that their rehearsed bits had been cut, due to the Mandel-mandated overtime first segment.
Still, let's not overlook the Emmy show's more traditional flaws, of which there are many.
Consider the repeat nominations and repeat awards that shower acclaim on the usual, increasingly dusty suspects years, even decades, beyond what even the most dedicated fan might consider appropriate. A phenomenon that serves mostly to reinforce the suspicion that the TV insiders who vote on these things probably aren't actually TV watchers.
Then there's the endless, and not even slightly subtle, cross-promotion of other network shows, actors and plot twists. The perpetual confusion of ratings success and artistic merit. Sentimental tributes. Pre-written comedy routines that are so stultifyingly unfunny they seem intended to serve as ironic comment upon the perpetual unfunniness of all pre-written awards show jokes.
I keep thinking I'm done complaining, but then I'm not. Here's more:
How can any one awards category pretend to judge such disparate practices as comedy, variety and music? What's next? Molecular physics, meteorology and orthodontia?
Back to the co-co-co-co-hosts: The seethingly neurotic Howie Mandel is bad enough. But in consort with the not-quite-lifelike Ryan Seacrest? They don't even do that to the prisoners at Guantanamo.
Still not done: I simply can't abide moral sanctimony from pampered show-folk. Same deal for unscripted political diatribes from an array of people whose sensibilities are so similar they seem, well, scripted.
All of which came bracketed by the seemingly endless (and endlessly breathless) hyping of some seemingly government-sanctioned event, the National Stay At Home Week, which just happens to be timed to -- what are the odds? -- the vast majority of this year's TV series premieres.
OK, for balance sake, one or two other mitigating factors: Ricky Gervais, possibly the funniest man on the planet, was actually given a substantial amount of time to be incredibly funny, and not with Emmy-generated material.
More good awards: "The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report," then that first-ever reality show host award actually went to the guy who deserved it the most: "Survivor's" Probst.
Small factors. Not nearly big enough. If this year's Emmy Awards succeeded at anything, it was as a kind of object lesson in what makes modern awards shows so very, very painful to watch.
Future generations, take note. You get the Howie Mandel you deserve.
I didn't watch. I watched the Dallas Cowboys whip the Green Bay Packers.
I was flipping back and forth between the last game at Yankee Stadium and a program I was eagerly awaiting on the Natl. Geo channel. At one point I tuned in to the Emmys hoping Hugh Laurie would finally win for “House” and saw Laura Linney accepting her award. Her snide remark about community organizers was all I needed not to return to that den of socialist propaganda.
To boot, Hugh was passed over again.
“AMC’s terrific, yet underwatched, period drama ‘Mad Men’ was rightfully proclaimed the year’s best drama”
Overrated! Judging by the title, I thought “Mad Men” would be a delightful romp through thye halcyon days of office-work, when you could smoke, booze, and sexually harrass secretaries. You know what? It’s boring. As depressing as the characters on the “The Sopranos” were, that show was fun. As depressing as the characters in the fiction of Zola and Flaubert were, those books are exciting. Just because your show is naturalistic, does not mean it has to be boring.
I keep praying JFK’s head will explode already, just so someone will show a little emotion on their face!
Wanted to be sure you read this!
They could have cut back on some of the awards and paid tribute to the history of TV. But no, it was once again about getting as many shows and “stars” of today on the air in 3 hours as possible.
I haven't watched an entire awards show in over a decade and now understand why.
Interestingly, Laura Linney is descended from Rep. Romulus Z. Linney (R-NC), a veteran of the Army of Northern Virginia who served in Congress during the Cleveland and McKinley administrations.
I read that on her bio page in Wikipedia. That sounds like a strange combination. Not a lot of Confederate veterans voted for Republicans much less got elected as Republicans.
I’m happy to admit that I’ve never watched the Emmys and never will. I’d rather scrub baseboards. With a toothbrush.
It was the Emmys or watch Shamwow! commercials.
You know, those Samwows! sound great!
It was the Emmys or watch Shamwow! commercials.
You know, those Shamwows! sound great!
Agreed. Vinnie ought to have been awarded an Emmy. Him and that nasally women on the gold commercial, “I sent in my diamond ring from my first marriage and got money the very next day.” Her I adore. My wife goes for Vinny.
Apparently the Hollywood mystique has colored Ms. Linney’s perceptions. A pity.......
These Hollyweird Award shows are basically televised circle jerks.
It was the Emmys or watch Shamwow! commercials.
Hardly! The Dallas Cowboys were opening a can of whoop ass on the Green Bay Packers, and the New York Yankees were playing their last game at Yankees Stadium.
My wife likes to watch too, for about the same stated reason.
I try not to think about it.
Few things in life cause an equal or greater level of fingernails on a chalk board moment for me, than these award programs.
The Emmy awards, as well as the Oscar awards, as well as both televised events, increasingly demonstrate ONE thing: the “audience” that “Hollywood” is producing for is increasingly no one but themselves!!!!!
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