The Emmys: Will the plug get yanked on its yearly turn on broadcast TV?

Neal Patrick Harris breathed new life into the Emmys on Sunday night -- but that's faint praise. Viewership of last night's broadcast on CBS (CBS) rose to 13.3 million among the target demographic of viewers 18 to 49. That's up from 12.3 million for the 2008 show, which, Broadcast & Cable notes, tied for the lowest rated Emmy broadcast of all time. Last night's ceremony earned its biggest audience in three years.

A gain is a gain, particularly in this increasingly fractured media universe, but the Emmys are in big trouble.The problems with the show are many. Mostly, the program has an elitist feel to it, as if it were designed by one group of Starbucks drinkers for another.