The 2015 MTV VMAs may have enlisted a superstar host in Miley Cyrus and some of summer's biggest music stars such as The Weeknd, Demi Lovato and Nicki Minaj for big performances, but the show still couldn't hold solid ratings. Today (Sept. 1), the numbers are out for the annual music award show, and there was a major dip in viewers from last year.
On MTV itself, 5 million people tuned in to view the VMAs for its 9 p.m. broadcast, according to The Hollywood Reporter. For the 11:30 p.m. broadcast, which started the second Cyrus finished her performance and announced her new album, 1.4 people tuned in.
These numbers are over a 3 million dip in viewers from last years show, which featured no host but performances from the likes of Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift and Sam Smith.
However, the 5 million viewers doesn't give the entire picture of the 2015 VMAs audience. For the first time ever, Viacom (which owns MTV) simultaneously broadcasted the show on MTV, MTV2, VH1, VH1 Classic, CMT, Logo, BET, Centric, Comedy Central and TV Land. When all 10 of those networks are tallied together, the audience reached closer to 10 million viewers.
MTV also claimed that it broke records on its streaming app, though the network did not announce how many people tuned in to the show online or via the app.
The VMAs were also a big hit on Twitter, notching over 21.4 million tweets throughout the duration of the show. The show has only been bested by the Super Bowl on social media.
