Though last night's 61st annual Primetime Emmy Awards telecast drew fewer viewers than the thrilling Giants-Cowboys game on NBC's Sunday Night Football, the show did reverse the trend of dwindling audiences for award-a-thons. Preliminary ratings show an increase in viewership of 8-10% over last year. The reasons for the bump? Surely not the winners, which were the same crop of critically acclaimed, low-watched shows that won last year (Mad Men, 30 Rock, etc.). Credit has to go to Neil Patrick Harris, who in his capacity as the host kept the evening light, brisk and good-spirited; and who in his capacity as a producer helped reshape the structure of the show into something more coherent than just random award after random award. And while dividing the show into discrete Comedy/Reality/Miniseries/Drama sections meant that the middle hour got bogged down in a parade of un-splashy winners, on the whole it made the event feel like it was heading somewhere, with a steady hand at the wheel. Kudos to the kudocasters.
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