Ratings: Lea Michele, ‘Glee’ cast’s appearance fail to lift Teen Choice Awards

The Teen Choice Awards remains more or less an enigma when it comes to ratings. For weeks leading up to the show, you hear nothing other than near-constant conversation about how excited everyone is to see the show in action, and how they are voting relentlessly to give their favorite stars surfboard trophies. In the end, more than 150 million votes were cast, but only one out of every fifty or so people who voted ended up actually tuning in to the show (that’s 2.63 million people for those of you who don’t want to do math.)

Despite having a performance from One Direction and the first appearance from Lea Michele following the death of Cory Monteith, the 2013 TCAs registered just a 0.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic (down 10% from last year) along with under three million viewers. Was part of the problem here competition? We’d like to say so, but we don’t know just how many teens are out there watching “True Blood,” the premiere of “Breaking Bad,” or anything else that is happening on cable.

The continually-low TCA ratings seem to just be the byproduct of a few simply things:

1. The awards themselves – There are so many of these handed out and they change so often, it’s hard to attach a certain level of prestige to any particular one. While any star is happy to have them, there is also not one award that the show is known for.

2. The time of the year – Early August is time for teens to enjoy the last part of summer before school starts, and not to sit at home and watch some sort of awards show that you can read about later.

3. Too many awards shows! – Think about it: In Between the VMAs, the BET Awards, the MTV Movie Awards, the Billboard Music Awards, the MuchMusic Video Awards, the CMT Awards, the AMAs, the ACAs, the ACM Awards, the Emmys, the Golden Globes, the Critics’ Choice Awards, the People’s Choice Awards, and of course the Grammys and the Oscars … you probably get at what we are saying here. There’s an awards-show burnout that happens, unless you can promise something that nobody else can.

If you want to read more about some particular highlights from the TCA show, including winners and notable performances, just be sure to click here.

Photo: Fox