By Lynn Elber, Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --Hard-working Emmy Awards host Stephen Colbert and a Sean Spicer cameo helped the ceremony avoid a ratings slide but failed to significantly boost viewership.
Sunday’s Emmys on CBS drew 11.38 million viewers to rank as the week’s No. 6 program, according to Nielsen figures released Tuesday. That’s slightly more than last year’s audience of 11.3 million, which was a record low for the ceremony.
Colbert’s opening song-and-dance routine and extended monologue included a number of digs at President Donald Trump and an appearance by former White House press secretary Spicer, who arrived on stage with his own lectern and drew surprised gasps from the theater crowd.
While the NBC hit drama “This Is Us” was among the nominees, the field also had a number of more niche shows such as Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” streaming TV’s first top drama winner. The increasingly splintered nature of TV is one reason the Emmys are challenged to draw a bigger audience.
The ceremony also competed with a top-ranked NFL game.
The football contest combined with two helpings of “America’s Got Talent” to give NBC the lead among networks, with an average 7 million viewers last week. Fox was second with 5.7 million, followed by CBS with 5.5 million; ABC, 3.8 million; Telemundo, 1.4 million; ION and Univision with 1.3 million each, and CW with 920,000.
Among cable channels, ESPN was top-ranked last week with an average 2.8 million viewers, followed by Fox News Channel with 2.1 million, MSNBC with 1.6 million and USA with 1.5 million.
ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.34 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 8 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 6.8 million viewers.
Below are primetime viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Sept. 11-17. Listings include the week’s ranking and viewership.
1. NFL Football: Green Bay at Atlanta, NBC, 20.24 million.
2. “NFL Sunday Post-Game,” Fox, 13.96 million.
3. “America’s Got Talent” (Wednesday), NBC, 11.59 million.
4. “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday), NBC, 11.57 million.
5. NFL Football: New Orleans at Minnesota, ESPN, 11.4 million.
6. “Emmy Awards,” CBS, 11.38 million.
7. “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 10.25 million.
8. NFL Football: L.A. Chargers at Denver, ESPN, 9.95 million.
9. NFL Football: Houston at Cincinnati, NFLN, 8.1 million.
10. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 6.8 million.
11. “The Orville,” Fox, 6.63 million.
12. “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 6.43 million.
13. “Big Brother” (Wednesday), CBS, 6.39 million.
14. “Football Night in America, Part 3,” NBC, 6.18 million.
15. “Big Brother” (Thursday), CBS, 6.132 million.
16. “American Ninja Warrior,” NBC, 6.127 million.
17. “The Big Bang Theory” (Monday), CBS, 5.74 million.
18. “NCIS,” CBS, 5.23 million.
19. College Football: Clemson at Louisville, ABC, 5.06 million.
20. “Mom,” CBS, 4.98 million.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More