With no Miley Cyrus twerking, VMA ratings down

NEW YORK (AP) — Without Miley Cyrus' twerking to get tongues wagging, ratings for MTV's annual Video Music Awards are down.

The Nielsen ratings company says the pop music extravaganza reached nearly 8.3 million viewers live on Sunday. That's down from the 10.1 million people who watched last year as Cyrus' suggestive dance with Robin Thicke was a big pop culture moment. Still, it's up from the 6.1 million people who watched the year before that.

Monday night's Emmy Awards had nearly twice as many viewers. But Nielsen says the VMAs generated 12.6 million tweets while the Emmys had slightly more than 1 million.