It may also come as a surprise to the relatives, friends, and roommates whom I’ve forced to watch the Tony Awards over the years that this year I didn’t watch until this magazine’s editor asked me to write about the awards show. But while I remain as steadfast a theater lover as ever, I just can’t get excited about the Tonys anymore. And I don’t seem to be the only one. Just 3.5 million people watched the Tonys this year, a 15% decline from last year’s broadcast. That’s only slightly better than 2021’s much-ballyhooed post-pandemic Tonys, which, with fewer than 3 million viewers, was the least-watched broadcast in the show’s history.

To be sure, the Tonys will never post audience numbers to rival the Oscars or the Grammys. But even by Tony standards, this is staggering. In 2016, the year Hamilton swept nearly every category, 8 million people watched the Tonys. And while that was certainly an outlier, it wasn’t that outlandish. In 2013, 7.2 million people watched Kinky Boots defeat Matilda and A Christmas Story for best musical. The following year, 7 million people watched the already-forgotten A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder best Beautiful: The Carole King Musical for the evening’s top award, which in sports terms is like watching LeBron James lose a Hall of Fame spot to a ticket taker.