Ratings for the Golden Globes take slight dip

The ratings for NBC’s Sunday night live broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards drew slightly less viewers this year, with just under 17 million viewers.

According to The New York Times, NBC announced Monday that the Nielsen ratings showed that 16.8 million people tuned in to the Ricky Gervais-hosted show, which was slightly below the exactly 17 million viewers that tuned in to see the 2011 awards handed out last January. The show received a 5.0 rating among the advertiser-coveted 18-49 age demographic, which was less than the 5.2 the last show received. That equals to a roughly 4 percent drop in the key age bracket.

Several factors may have led to the decline. Gervais’ humor is simply not for everyone. The show was also on NBC, which meant that less people were going to see promotion for the show, since NBC’s ratings during the week prove that almost no one watches the network (which is something Gervais actually joked about in his monologue). The ceremony also highlighted many smaller films and television programs like The Artist and Downton Abbey.

Another problem might have been the show’s competition. As NewsCore notes, Fox had a full slate of new animated shows, plus its NFL playoff game between the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants did not finish until just before 8 p.m. Early numbers showed that the NFL game drew 40 million viewers, many of whom stayed for The Simpsons, which drew 15.7 million viewers. The new Napoleon Dynamite show also had a strong number of viewers with 9.5 million.

Still, the NY Times notes that the Globes was the highest rated non-sports telecast for NBC since last year’s awards.