See what happened to the Emmys' ratings when the entire show bashed Trump

What happened?

Ratings for the Emmy Awards hit an all-time low Sunday. Only 11.38 million people watched the show, which was hosted by late-night host Stephen Colbert. According to the Los Angeles Times, the ratings were down 5 percent from 2016, which was the previous all-time low. This year marked the fourth consecutive year the ratings dropped since they topped nearly 18 million viewers in 2013 — the last year the ratings increased from the previous year. The show also garnered only a 2.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which is down 10 percent from last year.

Why did the ratings decline?

• Politics and Trump bashing: The Emmys was the first since Donald Trump became president — and the actors spent much of the show bashing him. As conservative actor James Woods noted on Twitter, the politics and Trump bashing alienates half of what is the most demographically and ideologically broad audience in the country.
• Football: The show was forced to go head-to-head with “Sunday Night Football,” which saw the Green Bay Packers play the Atlanta Falcons. People tend to choose sports over anything else on TV.
• Technological change: With the advent of social media, internet streaming and other new ways to consume content, not as many people are tuning into their TVs as they once did.

This writer’s perspective

It’s likely that the ratings will continue to decline. In conservative media circles, Hollywood award shows have been drug through the mud this year like never before. That’s because the celebrities seem to be insistent on bashing Trump — which tens of millions of Americans take as insulting to them.

As long as Trump is president, it’s nearly certain that the brash attacks on him from Hollywood will continue. But with that, their ratings — and maybe even their popularity — will decline. After all, a major reason Hillary Clinton lost is because many American saw her as out-of-touch. Certainly, campaigning with celebrities worth hundreds of millions of dollars bolstered that image.