MTV Video Music Awards Scores Big For CBS

The MTV Video Music Awards may not have the same meaning as it did in the 1990s but it’s clear that this year’s event had more juice than in a number of years.

Per Nielsen’s fast nationals, the ceremony hit an 11-year high and was up over 50% over the numbers from last year.

Obviously, the fact that it now airs on CBS as well as MTV means that it’s not a real comparison. But it was also up against Sunday Night Football on NBC that saw the Denver Broncos narrowly defeat the LA Rams.

The show, which featured an opening set from Madonna with Sabrina Carpenter and Charli XCX, record 8.43M viewers across CBS and MTV (and a repeat on MTV). This was up 51% from last year, which saw 5.5M viewers tune in for its first ever appearance on CBS. It peaked with over 15M viewers on the broadcast network and cable station.

Breaking it down, it was watched by 7.61M people on CBS, up from the 5M that tuned in last year, with MTV seeing 686,000 viewers and 142,000 viewers tuning in to the repeat.

The numbers are an 11-year high for the show, which was hosted by Snoop Dogg and broadcast live from LA’s Peacock Theater. It was the best same-day audience since the 2015 for the VMAs when it received 12.73M viewers, which was hosted by Miley Cyrus.

Taylor Swift took home the night’s top honor, Video of the Year, for her video of The Fate of Ophelia and there were tributes to both Dolly Parton (Kacey Musgraves singing I Will Always Love You) and George Michael (featuring the likes of Sombr, Raye and Adam Lambert).

Nirvana also received the Video Vanguard Award with Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear. Bassist Novoselic paid tribute to singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain, calling him “one of the greatest artists of all time”, while Smear lit a cigarette on stage, in his own tribute to Cobain.