The 94th Academy Awards drew a larger audience than last year’s least-watched Oscars ceremony. Sunday’s program, however, still well below previous yearssince both watching television and going to the movies have gone through changes radical recently.
ABC’s telecast of the Oscars drew an estimated total of 15.36 million viewers and one rating of 3.2 among adults aged 18 to 49according to Nielsen Quick National Ratings. Does not include viewing outside the homealthough that will be included in the final numbers on Tuesday morning.
Live streams usually (but not always) see their ratings adjust upwards after those elements are taken into account.
Even so, the first numbers placed the Sunday program well ahead of the final numbers from last year’s scaled-down ceremonywhich had an all-time low of 10.4 million viewers and a rating of 2.12 in the demographic studied
The figures show a 48% increase in total viewers and a 51% increase in adults 18-49 compared to last year’s finals.
The Oscars join several other award shows to stop the heavy declines the show suffered in the 2020-21 seasonthough none have reached pre-pandemic viewing heights.
The awards Emmy and SAG had considerable profits in their last deliveries, and the prizes CMA and American Music Awards (both on ABC) were flat or slightly above last year.
However, despite year-over-year improvements, Sunday’s Oscars will be the second least watched since Nielsen began tracking total viewers in the mid-1970s. Before last year, viewership had never dropped below 20 million viewers..
The ABC broadcast generated a huge reaction on social media when Will Smith came on stage and slapped host Chris Rock after the comedian made a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. That happened about to two thirds of the ceremony of 3 hours and 40 minutesby which time the audience had been with the show for about two and a half hours.
For its part, data from the analysis company Samba TV shows that the audience for the Oscars peaked about an hour earlier.
Source: Eluniverso
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