Last year, the MTV Video Music Awards dropped by 1.8 million total viewers from 2013. Last night, the VMAs lost an additional 500,000 audience members year over year.
While the bleeding has surely slowed, MTV was hoping that Miley Cyrus hosting could boost totals, as her 2013 twerking helped Nielsen numbers from the previous year. No such luck, however. And Viacom went all-in this year, with 10 networks — MTV, MTV2, VH1, VH1 Classic, CMT, Logo, BET, Centric, Comedy Central and TV Land — simulcasting the show.
In 2011, the VMAs hit a high with 12.4 million total viewers.
To be fair, social and streaming numbers were up from 2014. And in MTV’s key 18-34 demographic, the VMAs were still the top-rated awards show on cable this year.
Sunday’s show was actually the top-tweeted non-Super Bowl TV event since Nielsen began measuring Twitter reach. The 2015 MTV VMAs generated 21.4 million tweets, which reached 11.8 million people. Per Facebook, 16 million people had 39 million related interactions on the giant social media platform yesterday.
The 2015 VMAs generated 19.1 million streams, up 155 percent over the prior year, per MTV’s research. The cable channel’s app also delivered its best day ever.