Early returns on the 63rd Annual Primetime Emmys, televised Sunday night on Fox, are not particularly encouraging, TVbytheNumbers.com reports.

The broadcast averaged 12.4 million total viewers, the second-lowest tally on record, according to the report. Only the 2008 show on ABC, with 12.3 million, was lower. Last year’s ceremony, shown on NBC, brought in 13.5 million.

To no great surprise, last night’s Emmys telecast fell well short of the “Sunday Night Football” airing on NBC. Football had a preliminary 21.5 million total viewers, along with a 9.2 average rating in adults 18-49. The Emmys came in with a preliminary 3.7 average rating in 18-49.

Time zone adjustments are expected to tweak the results a bit, with live telecasts being traditionally unstable.

The glory days for the Emmys telecast were long ago: 35.8 million viewers tuned in to NBC for the 2008 Emmys, with 33.0 million dialing up ABC’s broadcast in 1982, according to figures posted by TVbytheNumbers.com.