It was a tall order for Emmy Awards 2012 to knock the ubiquitous 'Sunday Night Football' off the TV throne Sunday night.
In the end, an average of 13.2 million viewers tuned in to see Jimmy Kimmel & Co at the 64th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, broadcast live from Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. However that was not nearly enough, as the football monster outclassed the awards by more than six million viewers, with an average of 19.82 million viewers tuning in to see their favorite jerseys.
Despite the football ghost following ratings on any given Sunday, ABC must have felt comforted that the ratings had improved 6% over last year, and was one of the three best ratings over the last five years, according to Nielsen's true Fast National time-zone adjusted program averages.
The Emmy Awards winners featured both a few surprises, as well as the no-brainers. ABC's "Modern Family" was nominated for 14 rewards, and walked home not unexpectedly with five strong wins in comedy. However, Showtime's "Homeland" as the relative newcomer had only nine nominations, but walked home with six wins, just as many as HBO's "Game of Thrones" with its eleven nominations, the most wins among all nominees.