The impression I got about the Oscars is that they nominate arthouse type movies, which didn’t have wide circulation or wide appeal.
I know I don’t keep up with popular culture that much. But in recent years some movies nominated for Oscars I had never even heard of. I’m sure I’m not the only one. And I think this would affect the ratings for the Oscar telecast.
How many people want to sit through a 4-Hour award show to see what movie they never heard of , beat out another movie they never heard of for an award?
Yeah I think you have the trend exactly as it is now. There was a time popular movies sometimes won like Titanic. Also a few years ago they increased the number of movies nominated from 5 to 10 or 9 which to me made the category unwieldy. Since 2014 the AAs ratings have been in to borrow a term mostly declining.
2014 43.7 million
2015 37.2
2016 34.3
2017 32.9
2018 26.5
2019 29.6
2020 23.6