2016 Tony Awards: ‘Hamilton’ popularity leads to huge ratings gains

We had a feeling that the 2016 Tony Awards would be seeing some fairly solid ratings on Sunday night, and for a number of different reasons. For one, the show was likely going to give a bevy of awards to “Hamilton,” which has clearly been the Broadway show of this era and has inspired so many people to attend the theater. Also, there was a unifying quality about the show and the potential escapism it provided after the tragedy in Orlando over the weekend.

Based on the overnight ratings, this turned out to be the strongest Tonys in a good decade and a half. The show ended up getting a 6.8 rating and an 11 share last night, which throttled last year’s ratings by a good 33%. That show posted some of the lowest viewership numbers for the Tonys ever.

In other measures, the show (hosted wonderfully by James Corden) ended up drawing in a 1.6 rating in the key 18-49 demographic and also over 8.7 million viewers. We do understand that some of these ratings may be a one-time thing based largely on this moment and some various circumstances; we do certainly hope that some of the people who watched the show this time elect to do so again, since they can further allow for this celebration of great theater to be even more of a tradition than it is for many people across America.

Granted, maybe a big part of its success in future years is going to be in turn the success of some other shows on Broadway.

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