This coming Sunday is the 63rd Annual Prime Time Emmy Awards. That time of year when we celebrate excellence in national primetime programming. Or do we?

Let's be completely honest here. Few of us watch these shows anymore, and with the advent of the DVR, if we do watch, we are likely to just record it and forward to the few awards we care about. Unless of course you are fortunate enough to have some gay friends who throw a fabulous Emmy bash, in which case I am seriously envious of you and can you please get me invited to their Oscar party?

Sadly, these days, most of America doesn't really care about the Emmys and if the care at all it's just about the red carpet fashion. Joan Rivers will be sharpening her claws and her tongue just for the occasion in preparation for her usual bawdy observations and low-humor quips. Thank goodness for Closed Caption! You don't actually have to listen to her.

But here's something that I'm really wondering about. While I'm sure that these awards are still very important to the actors, directors, screenwriters etc as well as the networks, do they actually have any influence whatsoever on the viewing audience? With the overabundance of channels and programs to watch, not to mention OnDemand and Netflix instant watch, does the general public put and stock into whether or not a show wins awards? I don't think so. I think people watch what they like and don't watch what doesn't interest them and if their show got an award - great! If some show they haven't the slightest curiosity in should sweep the Emmys it's not going to make them tune in. I think back when we had just a few stations and fewer diversions to entertain us on a Tuesday night people did care. Maybe not a huge amount, but it told them where the quality was and the network with the more awards was likely to have the better shows in the next Fall lineup.

What do you think? Do you feel Emmy awards have any influence over viewers and their choice of what to watch these days?