The award show hit its zenith back when there were a grand total of three choices on the tube, so there was a huge "captive audience" factor. If you had nothing better to do, you watched the Oscars or the Emmys, often because they preempted whatever it was you would have watched. Even at that, Ol' Grampa Skid would not - under any circumstances - watch the Tony Awards... he felt (and still feels) that the test pattern was superior in entertainment value.
Agreed. I was watching the news the other morning and they had a recap of one of the awards show (Golden Globe? Hell, I don't know). Anyway, my wife and I hadn't heard of at least 3/4 of the people that won awards. Then there was a commercial on last night that had a montage of "stars" at some awards show--couldn't recognize a single one of them. Not one.