These Emmy Awards are not a popularity contest

When the 1960s period piece "Mad Men" won the Emmy for outstanding drama series at Sunday's 60th annual Emmy Awards, it made history in at least two ways. It became the first basic-cable program to take top series honors. But it also added a more dubious mark: Compared with previous Emmy series winners, "Mad Men" is by far the least-watched, with an average of fewer than 1 million viewers tuning in during its first season last year. That's a fraction of the audience of even NBC's ever-ratings-challenged "30 Rock," which again took the comedy prize this year.

Oprah Winfrey said at the outset of the award telecast, "Nothing connects us quite like television."

The sentiment may be hard to argue with, but it's out of step with the times. Anyone who bothers to look at the ratings can see that prime-time TV is no longer the great connector it once was. It may be the only remaining medium that can still unite 30 million people for, say, a broadcast phenomenon such as "American Idol." But disproportionate amounts of attention online, in print and among TV academy voters are now devoted to niche programs such as "Top Chef," "Damages" and "Mad Men."

And for the most part, that trend is the culmination of an explosion of original programming that has taken place on basic-cable networks over the past several seasons.

Whatever their flaws -- and you don't have to be a TV fanatic to discern many of those -- the Emmys have over time reflected the broad trends that shape television programming.

The awards may not react as quickly as some critics would like. But over the last few years academy voters have rewarded once-bit players such as AMC and Showtime for the huge investments they have made in original comedies and dramas.

In 1993, HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show" made history by becoming the first cable series to draw a best series nomination. Earlier this decade, HBO series were actually taking home the prizes: "Sex and the City" in 2001 and "The Sopranos" three years later. Now, no one questions that cable could easily corner the market on "quality" programming.

This has happened relatively quickly. During the '80s, then-nascent cable programming wasn't even eligible for Emmy recognition. Networks dominated all -- sometimes single networks. In 1987, all five of the comedy nominees were NBC shows (including the winner, "The Golden Girls"). But over the last decade, the networks have beat a partial retreat from expensive scripted series and big-budget "long form" programming. Instead, they are putting on more low-budget reality and game shows.