Disney has another reason to celebrate at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards: It looks like the show might finally be on the up again.

Sunday’s broadcast drew 6.87 million viewers on ABC, according to early Nielsen data. That made it the highest-rated broadcast in three years, up 60 percent from earlier this year when just 4.3 million viewers tuned in to Fox for the 75th awards ceremony in January, which was postponed due to strikes.

Viewership is also up only slightly this year compared to the last broadcast on ABC in 2020, when the height of the pandemic required no in-person audience and nominations were held remotely. That broadcast drew 6.3 million viewers, a record low at the time.

The Emmys have suffered a setback in recent years, hitting one historic low after another. While the show rebounded slightly in 2021 with 7.4 million viewers on CBS, it fell to another historic low the following year when fewer than 6 million people tuned in to the show on NBC.

There are likely several reasons why viewership increased this year. The show was back on a Sunday night. The January ceremony was on an MLK holiday, though that hasn’t mattered much in recent years since the show has declined so much. In fact, viewership this year is still lower than the 10.17 million viewers who watched the last Monday ceremony in 2018 on NBC.

The January ceremony also suffered from being sandwiched between several awards shows, including the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards. The bear, beef And Consequence took home the highest awards of all, making the Emmy show much more predictable for viewers.

Now that the Emmys are kicking off the awards season again (and Consequence was out of the race), there seemed to be a new tension regarding the potential winners.

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As always, the Emmys had to compete against the NFL, with the Houston Texans and Chicago Bears facing tough competition in prime time on NBC. The Emmys were also beaten by 60 minuteswhich was the most successful non-sporting program of the evening with 10.2 million viewers.

The biggest winner of the evening was undoubtedly FX, with The bear won four awards and Shogun They extended their record-breaking Emmy year, winning the Outstanding Drama Series award and three other trophies on Sunday, leading all programs. HBO pulled off a surprise in comedy despite a bad year for the network, as Hacking received the award for the most outstanding comedy series.

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