Golden Globes 2023 Ratings Lowest in Decades in Early Numbers

The 2023 Golden Globes ratings are officially in, and it’s not looking too shiny and bright for the award show this year. Just how many people watched the Golden Globes? Not many, compared to past broadcasts. Early numbers indicate an average of 5.3 million total viewers, per stats from Nielsen reported by TV Line and Forbes.

The early data only represents 8-11 p.m. ET viewership, and doesn’t include numbers from Peacock, where the Golden Globes were streaming, or DVR usage. Yet, the numbers aren’t too shabby for a Tuesday. The Globes typically air on Sunday nights, but they were bumped from the slot for Sunday Night Football, which airs on NBC (the broadcast home of the Globes under a one-year contract).

This year’s show, which was hosted by Jerrod Carmichael, pulled in even fewer viewers than the last televised broadcast, which aired in 2021. That year, the Golden Globes were viewed by a dismal 6.9 million viewers, marking a 60% drop from 2020, when 18.3 million people tuned into the three-hour broadcast. The New York Times reported after the 2021 broadcast that the audience was the smallest of “any Globes ceremony since NBC started broadcasting the event in 1996.”

Amy Poehler and Tina Fey hosted the show in 2021, where they shared duties from opposite coasts. But the bit wasn’t enough to rescue the Globes, which were under fire then for multiple controversies and only continued to flail until they were pulled off the air by NBC the following year. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) was criticized for its lack of diversity and questionable financial practices; actor Brendan Fraser also accused former HFPA President Philip Berk of groping him in 2003, which Berk denies.

And in 2022, of course, nobody watched the Golden Globes, technically. The show was not broadcast on TV, so the only people who witnessed what went down were the ones who were in the room where it all happened.