More than 5 million viewers tuned in Sunday night as TNT and TBS presented the live simulcast of the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®. This year’s star-studded simulcast ranked as basic cable’s #1 show on Sunday and posted solid 6% growth over last year in total audience. The two-hour ceremony also scored strong gains among key adult demos compared to last year.
17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards Ratings Highlights:
TNT and TBS combined to deliver 5,005,000 viewers, a 6% boost over last year. Individually, TNT averaged 2,820,000 viewers for Sunday night’s simulcast, while TBS delivered 2,185,000 viewers, both up 6% over last year.
The combined TNT and TBS demo deliveries for the simulcast scored strong gains compared to last year’s simulcast:
Adults 18-34: 1,163,000 (+30%)
Adults 18-49: 2,181,000 (+13%)
Adults 25-54: 2,238,000 (+8%)
Individually, both networks delivered growth in their respective key demos. TNT averaged 1.2 million adults 18-49, up 25%, and 1.3 million adults 25-54, up 18%. TBS averaged 542,000 adults 18-34, up 11%, while its delivery of adults 18-49 (934,000) was up slightly.
The SAG Awards® also proved to be a hit in social media, with the ceremony standing out as one of Twitter’s trending topics on both Sunday and Monday, soaring to the number one ranking throughout the simulcast.
Celebrating the most outstanding performances of the past year, the SAG Awards handed out top honors to The King’s Speech, which earned accolades for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and Outstanding Male Actor in a Leading Role (Colin Firth). Those also honored with individual Actors® for motion pictures were Natalie Portman (Black Swan) for her lead performance, and Christian Bale (The Fighter) and Melissa Leo (The Fighter) for their supporting roles.
On the television side, individual Actor recipients included Alec Baldwin (30 Rock) andBetty White (Hot in Cleveland) for comedy,Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire) and Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife) for drama, and Claire Danes (Temple Grandin) and Al Pacino (You Don’t Know Jack) for their television movie performances. The Ensemble awards for television this year went to Boardwalk Empire and Modern Family, while the SAG honors for stunt ensembles in film and television, announced during the TNT/TBS pre-show webcast, went to Inception and True Blood.
The 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards was produced by Jeff Margolis Productions in association with Screen Actors Guild Awards®, LLC. For more information about the SAG Awards and SAG, visit http://sagawards.org/about. TNT first aired the Screen Actors Guild Awards in 1998. TBS began simulcasting the event in 2006.
(Source: Turner Broadcasting System)
