TheWrap Emmy magazine: Even before the coronavirus and the George Floyd protests, this year’s awards shows dealt with widespread criticism and record low ratings
A version of this story about 2020’s awards first appeared in the Drama/Comedy/Actors issue of TheWrap’s Emmy magazine.

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I wouldn’t want to suggest that the ceremony is doomed — but even before the coronavirus came along to throw schedules into disarray, and long before the protests surrounding the killing of George Floyd made giving out showbiz awards seem frivolous, 2020 had been a miserable year for awards shows.
Ratings were down across the board, sometimes to record lows.
The credibility of many awards shows was fraying, with viewers increasingly aware of and concerned about the narrow-minded perspective that continually ignores the work of women and artists from underrepresented groups.
Also Read: Oscars Academy Introduces New Inclusion Initiatives, Expands Best Picture Category
And even the Oscars, which made the bold choice of “Parasite” for Best Picture and was applauded by nearly everyone for doing so, struggled to recover from a string of missteps that were designed to boost ratings but failed miserably.
The awful year began on Jan. 5, when the Golden Globe Awards took place in the face of widespread criticism that none of its best-director nominees were women. Ricky Gervais received largely negative response to his work as host, which included hectoring celebrities not to talk about politics. And the show’s rating, a 4.7 among viewers 18 to 49, and its total viewership, 18.32 million, were the lowest since 2012.
Three weeks later, the Grammy Awards took place at a time when the Recording Academy was in a pitched battle with fired CEO Deborah Dugan. She accused the Academy of operating as a corrupt “old boys’ club,” complete with underhanded methods of choosing Grammy nominees. Serious questions hung over the legitimacy of its awards — and like the Globes, viewership fell, making it the least-watched Grammys since 2006.
Also Read: Grammys Sink to Another Record Low in TV Ratings
Ten days after that, the Oscars tried to right the ship after a shortened schedule that had led to a frantic awards season. But again, the show drew protests over the lack of any female directing nominees and over only one person of color, Cynthia Erivo, among the 20 acting nominees.
The show, which didn’t have a host for the second consecutive year, turned into a satisfying and historic love-fest for Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” the first non-English film ever to win Best Picture. But it was also the lowest-rated and least-watched Oscars in history, mustering nearly 3 million fewer viewers than the previous low in 2018.
For as long as the Oscars’ television audience has been measured, the show has only dropped below 30 million three times: this year, last year and the year before that.
Meanwhile, France’s Cesar Awards caused an uproar when Roman Polanski’s “An Officer and a Spy” won three awards and prompted numerous walkouts led by “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” actress Adele Haenel, who shouted “Bravo, pedophilia!” as she and the film’s director, Celine Sciamma, walked through the lobby. (Even before that, the entire board of directors had resigned.)
Also Read: Adèle Haenel Walks Out of César Awards After Roman Polanski Win: 'Bravo, Pedophilia'
Then COVID-19 arrived. The Tony Awards were postponed indefinitely. The Cannes Film Festival awards didn’t happen, as the festival itself was replaced by a list of films that would have been booked. The Television Academy Honors, Peabody Awards and Pulitzer Prize ceremonies were also postponed indefinitely. The Daytime Emmys, Sports Emmys and Technology & Engineering Emmys were all replaced by virtual ceremonies. The Oscars were pushed all the way to April 2021, with other film awards shows tagging along and likely delaying the start of this year’s film awards season by two months. (February is the new December.)
And long before Hollywood began to get back to business in any real way, protests shook the country and suggested that at a time when the country needs to seriously deal with systemic racism, handing out golden statuettes is not exactly a priority for anybody.
And in that climate — with all the awards shows in January and February being ratings flops and all the ones since March being canceled, postponed or revamped — the Television Academy will try to pull off virtual Creative Arts Emmys presentations and then another, bigger show of some sort on Sept. 20.
It might work. It might not. Best of luck to them.
Read more of the Drama/Comedy/Actors issue here.
Emmy Contenders 2020, From Issa Rae to Jennifer Connelly (Exclusive Photos)
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Stars and creators of the season's biggest shows pose for StudioWrap
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Actress Jennifer Connelly, "Snowpiercer"
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Actress and series co-creator Issa Rae, "Insecure"
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Actor Bradley Whitford, "The Handmaid's Tale"
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Actress Aidy Bryant, "SNL" and "Shrill"
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Actor and creator Rob McElhenney, "Mythic Quest" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Actor Billy Porter, "Pose"
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Director Eric Goode, "Tiger King"
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Director Rebecca Chaiklin, "Tiger King"
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, "The Witcher"
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Actor and showrunner Dan Levy, "Schitt's Creek"
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Producer Ed Guiney, "Normal People"
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Director Kenny Leon, "American Son"
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Actor Jeremy Pope, "Hollywood"
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Photographed by Corina Marie Howell for TheWrap
Actress Kaitlyn Dever, "Unbelievable"
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Courtesy of Tim Blake Nelson
Actor Tim Blake Nelson, "Watchmen"
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Photographed by Marissa Mooney for TheWrap
Actor Ramy Youssef, "Ramy"
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Actress D'Arcy Carden, "The Good Place"Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Executive Producer, "Insecure"
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Photographed by Matt Sayles for TheWrap
Actress and series co-creator Issa Rae, "Insecure"
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Photographed by Steven Rodriguez for TheWrap
Actress Linda Cardellini, "Dead to Me"
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Photographed by Irvin Rivera for TheWrap
Actress Justina Machado, "One Day at a Time"
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Photographed by Christian Friis for TheWrap
Actor Jeremy Strong, "Succession"
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Photographed by Embry Lopez for TheWrap
Actor J.B. Smoove, "Curb Your Enthusiasm"
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Photographed by Shayan Asgharnia for TheWrap
Actor Diego Luna, "Narcos: Mexico"
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Photographed by Irvin Rivera for TheWrap
Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, "Hunters"
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Photographed by Corina Marie Howell for TheWrap
Actor Harvey Guillen, "What We Do in the Shadows"
Stars and creators of the season’s biggest shows pose for StudioWrap
Stars and creators of the season's biggest shows pose for StudioWrap
Steve Pond
Steve Pond has been writing about film, music, pop culture and the entertainment industry for more than 40 years. He has served as TheWrap’s awards editor and executive editor, awards since joining the company in 2009. Steve began his career writing about music for the Los Angeles Times, where he remained a contributor for more than 15 years, and Rolling Stone, where he was West Coast Music Editor and wrote 16 cover stories. He moved into film coverage with a weekly column in the Washington Post and became a contributing writer at Premiere magazine, where he became the first journalist to have all access to the Academy Awards show and rehearsals. He has also written for the New York Times, Movieline, the DGA Quarterly, GQ, Playboy, the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, New York, the Christian Science Monitor, Live! magazine and many others. He is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller “The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards” (Faber and Faber, 2005). He has also written “Elvis in Hollywood” (New American Library, 1990) and contributed to books that include “Cash,” “The Rolling Stone Reader,” U2: The Rolling Stone Files,” “Bruce Springsteen: The Rolling Stone Files” and “The Rolling Stone Interviews: The 1980s.” He was the co-managing editor of the syndicated TV news program “The Industry News” and the creative consultant for the A&E series “The Inside Track With Graham Nash.” He has won L.A. Press Club awards for stories in TheWrap, the Los Angeles Times and Playboy, and was nominated for a National Magazine Award for a story in Premiere.