• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, September 22, 2020

One-third of Sunday night’s three-hour Emmy telecast on ABC was devoted to a TV show, “Schitt$ Creek,” that averaged just 375,000 total viewers per first-run episode in its sixth and final season earlier this year.

According to trade press reports on Monday, “The 72nd Emmy Awards” on ABC Sunday night drew only 5.11 million total viewers from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern -- down from the 6.9 million the show attracted a year earlier.

The highlight of the show was watching “Schitt$ Creek” win all of the first seven categories announced during the Emmys’ first hour.

It was possibly the first and only time this had ever happened: A single show enjoying a one-hour winning streak at the outset of the Emmys.

The show’s string of victories ended at around 9 p.m. simply because the categories in which it was nominated ran their course. 

“Schitt$ Creek” swept the top comedy categories: Best Actor, Eugene Levy; Best Actress, Catherine O’Hara; Best Supporting Actor, Daniel Levy, son of Eugene; Best Supporting Actress, Annie Murphy; Outstanding Writing, Daniel Levy (pictured above); Outstanding Directing, Daniel Levy and Andrew Cividino; and Best Comedy.

The show also won two other Emmys in categories that were not seen on the Emmys show -- Outstanding Casting for a Comedy and Outstanding Contemporary Costumes.

This achievement -- nine Emmys won by a show made in Canada and airing in first-run in the U.S. on a cable channel, Pop, that has only one other original series -- was historic. All nine Emmys were the first ones the show had ever won. 

Those nine Emmys, plus one additional Emmy for Pop’s “One Day At a Time” reboot, earned Pop third place out of all networks and streaming services at the Emmys this year. HBO was first with 30, Netflix was second with 21, and then Pop with 10.