Last Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards were… well we kinda don’t know what they were, to be honest. Katy Perry made gag-worthy jokes about US politics while people whose lives were actually affected by those politics gave powerful statements. Ed Sheeran cheerily sang Lil Uzi Vert’s song about being pushed to the edge and dead friends before Logic performed a serious suicide awareness song an hour later. It was a mess, and the confusion was reflected in the low ratings.
As reported by the Washington Post, the ceremony drew 5.68 million viewers across multiple networks, which is down from 6.5 million last year, itself a steep drop from 9.8 million in 2015. Yeesh. The Post points out that awards show viewership is down overall this year, so the VMAs are just representing a trend. However, there’s another factor to consider and that’s obviously Game of Thrones, which handily beat out the VMAs on the same night with a record 12.07 million viewers (likely something around 30 million if you count streams and delayed watchings). Those not converted were teens, who, again according to the Washington Post, apparently chose to watch the VMAs over the Thrones season finale.
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This is frankly confounding: why would you decide to watch an awards show over undead dragons melting fortresses with ice-fire? What part of that does not sound dope as shit? I don’t get the youth.
Phil is shaking his head on Twitter.
