It was a brutal awards show season when it came to ratings, with every major broadcast taking a hit. Except for one show: The Academy of Country Music Awards broadcast on Sunday actually managed to gain viewers.
Though the program saw no improvement in the all-important 18-49 demographic, CBS’s ACM Award broadcast marked a modest increase in total viewers and drew two million more viewers than former FBI director James Comey’s interview on ABC. Deadline compared the numbers:
It’s hard to say with total certainty why the Oscars, the Globes, and Grammys all faltered this year, but it’s easy to understand why fewer people would be inclined to tune in after the entertainment industry’s moral credibility was plundered by #MeToo, and divisive politics were all but certain to dominate the broadcasts. A poll on the awards shows released by the conservative Media Research Center last month found that while 46 percent of respondents said sports and entertainment shows becoming “too political” has made no difference to them, 44 percent said it’s made them less likely to watch.
Among those who did not watch the Oscars this year, 19 percent said it was at least in part because, “I’m tired of these shows being full of political statements,” and 11 percent said, “I would have watched but knew some of the presenters and winners would use the time to share their political agenda.” A full 75 percent agreed they watch sports and entertainment shows to get away from politics and don’t want to be “bombarded by partisan political messages.”
ACM host Reba McEntire seemed to understand that. As she made the media rounds last week in preparation for the show, McEntire promised a politics-free ceremony. “My job is to entertain. I don’t choose sides, I entertain,” McEntire told Rolling Stone. “When people come in to watch me perform they leave their worries and their cares outside. With my music and the help of the songwriters and musicians that have worked on these songs, our job is to lift people up and encourage them so that when they go out into the world to face their problems again they can do it with a little more courage and lightheartedness.”
The Nashville legend elaborated on that point in an interview with Us Weekly, explaining, “There’s a lot of political things you can address, stuff going on in the world. That’s not our theme; our theme is to have fun, not to be mean, not to be catty, just to have a great night of entertainment, great music, seeing everybody and introducing new music.”
Devastated by the unthinkable Las Vegas mass shooting at a country music festival last fall, the industry could easily have veered into politics. The CMA Awards ceremony, which aired a month after the tragedy, was criticized for remaining largely apolitical. But those ratings weren’t so bad either.
