GOLDEN GLOBES / CHANNEL ISLAND / SCOTT COLLINS

Fancy gowns and teary speeches made a comeback at Sunday’s Golden Globes on NBC, but all that couldn’t rescue the ceremony’s ratings, with the telecast delivering its second-worst numbers since 1995.

The three-hour Globes averaged 14.6 million viewers, according to early data from Nielsen Media Research. That was a big improvement over last year, when the writers strike led to a stripped-down, one-hour news conference seen by only 6 million viewers.

But the Sunday telecast marked a steep dive from 2007, when the Globes averaged 20 million viewers -- not to mention as recently as 2004, when the award show was encroaching on Oscar territory with an audience of 26.8 million.

It’s possible that last year’s interruption may have hurt the Globes. Limited constituencies for the movies nominated this year -- including “The Reader,” “Revolutionary Road” and “Slumdog Millionaire” -- probably didn’t help, either.

On the bright side, the Globes ranked first in viewers during every half-hour the program aired except for the 8 to 8:30 p.m. block, when CBS’ “60 Minutes” was artificially inflated by the spillover in some markets of the San Diego Chargers-Pittsburgh Steelers football game.

On Fox, a two-hour special season opener of “24” averaged 12.6 million viewers, which was slightly higher than the numbers for the series’ “Redemption” TV movie that aired in November and was roughly in line with “24’s” season averages across its run. However, the special slid 20% in viewers compared with the Sunday Season 6 opener that ran in January 2007.

Overall, it was the least-watched season launch for “24” since the third-season premiere in Oct. 2003 drew 11.6 million viewers.

ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” (13.8 million viewers) beat the Globes during the 9 p.m. hour among 18- to 49-year-olds (5.2 rating/12 share vs. 4.7/10) but nevertheless tied its lowest rating for an original episode.

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scott.collins@latimes.com