About 13.5 million people watched the Emmy Awards on Sunday night, relatively flat from a year earlier, in a much-watched indicator for the event's organizers as they begin to negotiate a new contract with the networks that air the show.

The ceremony, which saw ABC's sitcom 'Modern Family' win best comedy and AMC's 'Mad Men' win best drama, drew roughly 32,000 viewers more than in 2009, according to preliminary data provided by NBC, which aired the gala. Nielsen Co. will publish final numbers Tuesday morning.

While Sunday's audience was 9.4% larger than in 2008, the show's lowest viewership since 1990, it is still down by nearly a third from 2002, when the four biggest U.S. networks last agreed to air the show. That eight-year, $52 million deal with the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences ended with Sunday night's show, and now the networks want to pare down what they pay, according to people familiar with the matter.

An Academy spokesman declined to comment on talks.

Earlier in August, executives from each of the four Emmy networks -- CBS Corp.'s namesake network, General Electric Co.'s NBC, News Corp.'s Fox and Walt Disney Co.'s ABC -- met with Academy representatives for a preliminary talk about the show's future, according to people familiar with the get-together. News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal.

One idea broached was expanding the number of networks that rotate carrying the awards, according to the people familiar with the meeting. That move could spread the cost to include cable networks whose shows often win top awards.

Another idea discussed at the meeting was to move some of the less popular categories to a separate show on cable TV.

On Sunday, cable networks took home 17 awards, while the four broadcasters that pay for the rights won a combined nine.

The flat ratings come after a series of live events have posted significant year-to-year gains. Audiences for programs ranging from the Super Bowl to the Golden Globes have grown in the last year, even as the overall TV audience continues to fragment among networks and shows.

Some TV executives say live events are tapping into services such as Twitter and Facebook that allow viewers to comment in real time on the show.

To capitalize on that, NBC aired the Emmys live coast-to-coast, eschewing the tape-delayed version in the Pacific time zone for the first time since 1976.