Daytime Emmys moving to Vegas and CBS

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Looking to boost ratings for a foundering franchise, the Daytime Emmy Awards are moving to Las Vegas and back to a big broadcast television network this year. While most award shows, including the Oscars, Emmys and Tony Awards, have seen audiences grow in the last couple of years, the Daytime Emmys have not risen with that tide. After last year’s show drew a paltry 2.7 million viewers on the CW Network, which aired the program in the dog days of August, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is hoping that a change of scenery and a return to a bigger TV presence will help. CBS will air the show on Sunday, June 27, so at least it will have a bigger platform to reach viewers than the CW gave it. It is unclear whether the academy has a one-year or multi-year deal with CBS. The show in the past has rotated among networks like a hot potato.

But ratings for the show have been in a steady decline for the last decade. In 2008, ABC’s telecast of the Daytime Emmys averaged just 5.5 million viewers. The last time the program broke more than 10 million viewers was in 2002.

Part of the problem has to do with daytime TV itself. There are fewer soap operas, game shows and talk shows on broadcast television as local TV stations program more local news instead. That hardly makes for exciting awards. For all the inroads cable TV has made in prime time, daytime there is still primarily a wasteland of reruns.

-- Joe Flint