The 95th Academy Awards, which aired Sunday night on ABC, were watched by about 18.7 million viewers in the United Statesaccording to preliminary data from Fast National Live + Same Day released this Monday by the chain.
The figure represents a 12% increase from last year’s ceremonybut it is still low compared to previous years.
The main competition of gala programming, the season finale of The Last of Usdrew 8.2 million viewers on HBO and HBO Max. It is worth clarifying that the chapter began at 21:00 in New York (0100 GMT) one hour after the start of the Oscars.
A common criticism of the Oscars is that the gala celebrates films that are underappreciated by mass audiences. However, this year was markedly different, with two successful sequels that grossed billions dollars in the mix: Top: Gun Maverick AND Avatar: The Way of Water (Avatar: The Path of Water) which were nominated for Best Picture.
After the Super Bowl, the Oscars
For her part, Angela Bassett was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), earning Marvel’s first acting nomination. Even the winning film, Everything everywhere all at once (All everywhere at the same time) from the A24, grossed over $100 million at the worldwide box office and played in theaters for months.
For many years, The Oscars were the second most watched TV show of the year after the Super Bowl.. Until 2018, the Oscars telecast had never dipped below 30 million viewers, according to Nielsen records. The high point was 55 million people who tuned in to see the crushing triumph of titanic in 1998.
Free fall
Of the 43.7 million of viewers who watched the Oscars in 2014, viewership numbers have steadily declined 26.5 million in 2018, then it went back to 29.6 million in 2019 and it was 23.6 million in 2020.
The index has reached its lowest point due to the pandemic in 2021when the ceremony was seen for only 9.85 million of spectators. It rebounded last year to 16.6 million, but was still the second-lowest rated show ever.
Jimmy Kimmel, who hosted the ceremony in 2017 and 2018, returned to host the gala and parachuted onto the Dolby Theater stage. The awards ceremony also featured performances by pop stars like Rihanna and Lady Gaga.
27 million entangled
Audience ratings of TV broadcasting has declined in the streaming eraAnd the awards prove it. Despite these changes in viewership, the televised gala had 27.4 million total social interactions on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and was the world’s number one trending topic on Twitter for its entire run.
On Monday afternoon, Ke Huy Quan’s acceptance speech had more than 1.3 million views on YouTube, and Ke Huy Quan’s speech Brendan Fraser hit 2.6 million.
The ABC telecast also had 1.8 million views of the live broadcast in American Sign Language.
“What we wanted to do was go out there and perform an awards show that audiences really liked and that people were talking about,” said Oscar producer Glenn Weiss The Hollywood Reporter hours after the ceremony. “We think we have. I hope (Monday) brings some good news in terms of attendance, but either way, I think it was a successful night.”
Source: Clarin
