Seven proved to be a lucky number for CBS executives after all when last night’s 77th Primetime Emmy Awards boasted the highest viewership for the ceremony in four years, according to a Monday report by Deadline’s Katie Campieone. The 2025 awards marked the event’s first return to a normal schedule after the 2023 show was postponed to January of 2024 to accommodate that year’s Writers Guild of America strike, resulting in a truncated turnaround for the 2024 awards.

This year’s Emmys drew an estimated 7.42 million viewers across CBS and Paramount+, marking an eight-percent increase from last year’s awards (via Deadline). While still trailing behind its cinema-based counterpart, the Oscars, which averaged over 19 million viewers this March, according to The Hollywood Reporter, this year’s numbers still were the highest since the last time CBS hosted in 2021. That’s nothing to snuff at, especially because it continues a recent reversal of decline for the awards show over the last fifteen years. In the span of less than two years, the ceremony has recovered almost three million viewers from its historic low in early 2024.

That’s saying nothing of the myriad other reasons Sunday’s showing might have been particularly memorable for network executives. Seth Rogen’s (Neighbors, Kung Fu Panda) Hollywood satire The Studio broke the record for the number of Emmys awarded to a single season of comedic television with thirteen (via the Associated Press), while medical drama The Pitt took home the coveted award for Outstanding Drama Series after a bitter season of competition with Severance. The current American political landscape was also a running theme of the event, ranging from the implicit — such as comedian and political commentator Stephen Colbert’s (Rick and Morty, Our Cartoon President) standing ovation in the wake of his show’s controversial cancellation — to actress Hannah Einbender’s (Hacks, North Hollywood) remarks at the end of her acceptance speech. “Go Birds, f*ck ICE, and Free Palestine. Thank you.”

The 77th Primetime Emmy Awards are streaming now on Paramount+.