Associated Press
Tuesday, January 13, 2009

NEW YORK, Jan. 12 -- The glitz and glamour returned to the Golden Globes, but not all the audience did.

An estimated 14.6 million people watched Sunday night's ceremony from Beverly Hills. That's certainly a larger audience than the star-free Globes from last year, which was held during the writers' strike; 6 million watched in 2008. But Nielsen Media Research said this year's TV audience was the smallest since the awards moved to network television in 1994.

Two years ago, 20 million people watched the Globes on NBC. "Slumdog Millionaire," a movie set in India and which has no stars, was a big winner this year, as were actresses Kate Winslet and Tina Fey.

In the night's other big television event, Fox's seventh season of "24" was seen by 12.5 million people. Kiefer Sutherland's adventure series hasn't been seen in two years; it was knocked off the air in 2008 by the writers' strike. Viewership of the premiere was down from the 15.7 million people who watched the January 2007 season debut but up from the 10.4 million who watched that season's finale.