Woke Ratings Fail: SAG Awards Viewership Drops to 1.5 Million Even When Streaming for Free on YouTube

 

Hollywood is giving away woke awards shows for free now and people still don’t want to watch.

 

The star-studded annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday managed to draw just 1.5 million viewers, a drop from 1.8 million from last year’s ceremony. The decline is especially dire considering Sunday’s event streamed for free on YouTube and other social media platforms, while last year’s show was broadcast solely on the cable channels TBS and TNT.

 

While online views and TV ratings are measured differently, Sunday’s viewership still registers as a disappointment for organizers who were almost certainly hoping to generate more interest by making the show available to the growing number of households without a cable subscription.

 

But that hope clearly failed to materialize.

 

SAG-AFTRA told Variety that the Sunday’s livestream generated more than 1.5 million views across Netflix’s YouTube channel, as well as Facebook and Twitter, in the first 12 hours. That represents the lowest number of viewers in the show’s history, not including the pandemic year 2021, when the show’s ratings dipped below 1 million.

 

Sunday’s livestream featured a number of woke moments, including SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher encouraging studios to boycott certain states in the name of “diversity.”

 

Top priority of @SAGAFTRA President @FranDrescher: “The biggest joint effort of stars and studios to save the planet since World War II. Mission number one, an honor system to eliminate single-use plastic on camera, behind the scenes…” #SAGAwards pic.twitter.com/TbGDGbmFqL

— Brent Baker 🇺 (@BrentHBaker) February 27, 2023

 

Like other woke Hollywood awards shows, the SAG Awards is facing dwindling public interest, with ratings plummeting to alarmingly low levels. In 2013, the SAG Awards drew more than 5 million viewers, which was considered low at the time. Last night’s viewership represents less than 30 percent of that.

 

As a result, broadcasters like TNT and TBS are opting to dump the low-rated broadcasts for which they would normally have to pay a hefty price to the awards organizer. The IFC Channel recently decided it won’t air the low-rated Indie Spirit Awards, which will now be streamed on YouTube. 

 

As Breitbart News reported, Netflix announced in January a multiyear deal to stream the SAG Awards. This year’s broadcast was streamed on Netflix’s YouTube channel, with plans to stream the event live globally on Netflix’s platform starting next year.

 

This year’s Golden Globes broadcast on NBC also saw its ratings tumble to a new low.

 

Source:  Breitbart