NEW YORK: And the winner wasn't the Emmys — at least, when it came to the viewership. Nielsen says Sunday's three-hour special on Fox averaged just 11.9 million viewers, making it the least-watched Emmycast in history.

Last year, when it aired on a Monday in late August on NBC, it logged 15.6 million viewers. In 2013, 17.8 million viewers tuned in for CBS' broadcast, teamed with an NFL game as a powerful lead-in.

This year's Emmy show likewise had football as a lead-in. But the Emmys faced football as direct competition, too, thanks to NBC's Sunday Night Football, which doubtless dragged down the Emmy audience.