Binside TV: PRIMETIME EMMY AWARDS LOSES VIEWERS SUFFERS FROM LOW RATINGS 30 ROCK & MAD MEN EMMY WINNERS

The Primetime Emmy Awards aired and suffered from low ratings despite Heidi Klum flashing her rear end to show a bruised booty shot. The big winners of the night were 30 Rock, Stephen Colbert's Colbert Report which won an Emmy for Outstanding writing and Mad Men. Click here for more photos from the Primetime Emmy Awards.

After broadcast TV execs received word about the ratings on their beloved Emmy Awards yesterday morning, they flung themselves on casting couches and chewed the cushions in an ecstasy of grief. Sunday's 60th annual Primetime Emmy Awards, celebrating all that's best and brightest on cable TV (and broadcast series that do cable-like ratings) and featuring superannuated stars of '70s shows and a five-headed reality-TV host, had inexplicably attracted the franchise's smallest audience in its history. A mere 12.2 million viewers caught the 3-hour 8-minute orgy of trophy dispensing and politically charged speechifying. And while that's a terrific number for many of the night's big winners -- AMC's "Mad Men" averages about 925,000 viewers; HBO's "John Adams" and FX's "Damages," 2 million-ish; AMC's "Breaking Bad," 1.4 million; Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," 1.6 million; and NBC's "30 Rock," 6.5 million -- it's just another insult for the broadcast networks that for years have shelled out a license fee for permission to broadcast what has become a cable infomercial. HBO bagged 26 Emmys this year, including 13 for "John Adams," which makes it the winningest miniseries in Emmy history. The pay-cabler's "Recount" took another three. AMC's awards included the historic "Mad Men" win for best drama series -- the first time a basic-cable series has won a best-series trophy -- and "Breaking Bad" star Bryan Cranston's surprise win for best drama-series actor. ad_icon NBC's struggling series "30 Rock" mopped up in the comedy competition. Ironically, when star/writer Tina Fey was onstage literally begging people to watch her show, NBC was pounding the tar out of the Emmycast with its Green Bay Packers-Dallas Cowboys football game, which logged about 19 million viewers (reliable stats won't be available until today). source