Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale was the first-ever streaming show to win an Emmy for Outstanding Drama. It was probably also the least watched winner ever.
Last year, Hulu said it had 12 million subscribers, with slowing growth relative to prior years. BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield estimates that the streaming service now has no more than 15 million subscribers. And, of course, not all of them have seen The Handmaid’s Tale. Probably no more than half the service’s subscribers watched the show — a high guess — and that’s 7.5 million.
Hulu is a joint venture between Walt Disney, 21st Century Fox, Comcast and Time Warner.
Even if every Hulu subscriber tuned in to watch Handmaid’s Tale, though, viewership would still be far below last year’s winner, HBO’s Game of Thrones, which pulled in an average of 26 million viewers per episode. (The seventh season of Game of Thrones aired over the summer, but it didn’t start in time to be included in this year’s Emmy slate.)
HBO had 49 million subscribers in the U.S. at the end of 2016. Netflix doesn’t disclose viewership numbers so we don’t know how many people watched its best-drama nominees, House of Cards, The Crown, and Stranger Things. But those audience figures were still likely higher than Handmaid’s Tale, given that Netflix has just over 50 million subscribers in the U.S.
NBC’s This Is Us, the first network-nominated drama nominated in six years, pulled in 12.8 million viewers for its May finale, according to Nielsen. The show likely got more viewers following the finale via DVR and, ironically, Hulu.
According to the early returns, 11.4 million viewers tuned in for Sunday night’s Emmys, a relatively low figure though better than last year’s.
