VMAs Vs Emmys 2014: Video Music Awards Wins Twitter Over TV's Biggest Night

And the award for most-tweeted award show in the last 48 hours goes to … the VMAs. MTV’s tribute to music trounced the Emmys on social media, with more than 800,000 uses of the #VMAs hashtag during the award show’s peak Sunday evening compared to just over 182,000 for the #Emmys hashtag a day later, according to an analysis by hashtags.org.

At 9 p.m. EDT Sunday, there were about 818,100 tweets using the #VMAs hashtag. At its peak, the Emmys had about 182,500 Twitter posts with the #Emmys hashtag, which occurred when the television awards was two-thirds through. Beyoncé, who closed out the VMAs, showed she was just as big a draw on social media as she was on television, with 47,200 tweets hashtagged #Beyonce as she took the stage. The Emmys' moving tribute to the late Robin Williams was perhaps the most heavily hashtagged name from the awards night, but it was still dwarfed by the “Single Ladies” singer. The #RobinWilliams hashtag was tweeted out about 6,300 times at 10 p.m. EDT Monday. Emmy host Seth Meyers was hardly on the Twitter radar, with a mere 146 hashtagged tweets using his name at 8 p.m. EDT Monday.

Traditionally airing on Sundays, the Emmys were moved to Monday by NBC. The network told Entertainment Tonight that the change in schedule was made because the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles was booked for Sunday – an explanation that doesn’t hold up, according to ET, because the venue gives the Emmys the first rights to the theater. But the entertainment website also said that explanation might explain why the VMAs were held at The Forum in Los Angeles instead of the Nokia Theater -- the awards show’s usual venue.

Other sources say the real reason the Emmys were aired on Monday is because of the NFL. Preseason football was televised on CBS on Sunday night, and even though it wasn’t the regular season, the NFL is still a big draw, and the Emmys wouldn’t have wanted to compete for ratings with it, according to Vulture.

Twitter is also a tool of Millennials, and the VMAs are hotter with that demographic than the Emmys are.