Are MTV Movie Awards Being Sucked Dry by Twilight?

Nope. Even though show lost TV viewers for second straight year, vampire franchise arguably saved its golden bucket of popcorn, so to speak

By Joal Ryan Jun 07, 2011 7:40 PMTags
Kristen Stewart, Robert PattinsonKevin Winter/Getty Images

Another MTV Movie Awards dominated by the Twilight franchise. Another ratings decline.

Wait, what?!

Could it be that audiences are over Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and the rest?

RELATED: Best and Twilight-related worst from Sunday's show

The short answer, as far as the MTV Movie Awards is concerned, is no.

Now, it's true: Sunday's show, which averaged 4.5 million viewers, was off slightly from the 2010 telecast (4.6 million), and more significantly from 2009's (5.3 million).

Put it all together, and that's two straight down years.

But...

The show hasn't had any trouble attracting the Twilight phenomenon's most ardent fans: teens. Among those viewers, Sunday's Jason Sudeikis-hosted shindig posted its best ratings in seven years. And among everybody, the show was still a hit, finishing in sixth place in Nielsen's latest cable rankings.

Eclipse, like Twilight and New Moon before it, was the big winner at Sunday's show. 

In fact, before the vampire series started dominating the popcorn-bucket game in 2009, the MTV Movie Awards had been on a six-year-long ratings losing streak. (The first time Pattinson and Stewart appeared on the show, in 2008, prior to the release of Twilight, the telecast bottomed out with a 21st-century-worst 3 million viewers.)

So, if anything, Twilight saved the MTV Movie Awards.

Sorry, disgruntled Harry Potter people.

Other TV ratings winners—and losers:

Teen Wolf: Premiering after the MTV Movie Awards, the show did better with teen girls than The Hard Times of R.J. Berger did in the same golden time slot last year. Overall, though, Hard Times drew the bigger audience, 2.6 million viewers to Teen Wolf's 2.2 million.

America's Best Dance Crew: Airing before the MTV Movie Awards, its season finale was way up over last year's, pulling in 2.6 million.

America's Got Talent: Biggest season-opener ever (15.3 million). As an added bonus, it led The Voice to a new series high (14.4 million).

The World According to Paris: How "disastrous" was the premiere of Paris Hilton's new reality series? Actually, for an Oxygen series, it was above average. (But, yes, with just 409,000 viewers, it was no Simple Life.)

Real Housewives of Orange County and Game of Thrones: Can't see the connection? Both hit new series highs, with (completely different) audiences of 2.9 million and 2.7 million, respectively. 

• Sports: The first two games of the NBA Finals were the most-watched shows on TV; hockey's Stanley Cup series was big. (For the Stanley Cup, that is.)