Disney has one more thing to celebrate at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards: It looks like the series is finally popular again.

Sunday’s broadcast drew 6.87 million viewers on ABC, according to early Nielsen data. That makes it the show’s largest audience in three years, up 60 percent from earlier this year, when just 4.3 million tuned in on Fox for the strike-delayed 75th anniversary ceremony in January.

Viewership is also up slightly this year compared to the last time it aired on ABC in 2020, when the height of the pandemic required no in-person audiences and remote nominees. That broadcast drew 6.3 million viewers, which was a record low at the time.

The Emmys have taken a beating in recent years, with low point after low point. While the show rebounded slightly in 2021 with 7.4 million viewers on CBS, the following year it dropped back to a previous low with fewer than 6 million people watching the show on NBC.

There are likely a couple of reasons why this year saw an uptick in viewers. The show was on a Sunday night again. January’s ceremony was on an MLK holiday Monday, though that hasn’t mattered much in recent years since the show has been in such a steep decline. In fact, this year’s viewership is still down from the 10.17 million viewers who watched the last Monday ceremony on NBC in 2018.

January’s ceremony also suffered from being sandwiched between several awards shows, including the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards; The Bear, Beef And Succession won the major awards across all series, making the Emmy show a lot more predictable for viewers.

Now that the Emmys are starting again (and Succession (was out of the race) there seemed to be a renewed excitement about the potential winners.

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As always, the Emmys had to go up against the NFL, with NBC’s primetime Houston Texans-Chicago Bears matchup providing stiff competition. The Emmys were also defeated by 60 minuteswhich was the most popular non-sports program of the evening with 10.2 million viewers.

FX was undoubtedly the biggest winner of the night, with The Bear win four prizes and Shogun extends a record Emmy year, winning Outstanding Drama Series and three other trophies Sunday to lead all programming. HBO pulled off a surprise in comedy despite a down year for the network, as Tricks won the award for Best Comedy Series.

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