Oscars Audience Down 9% To 4-Year Low On ABC & Hulu

Deadline ^ | Campione | Katie

[abb]

The 98th Oscars audience slipped to a four-year low this year with 17.86 million viewers across ABC and Hulu on Sunday.

That’s down about 9% from last year, when the show tallied nearly 20M viewers after Disney accounted for PC and mobile viewing. So, it’s possible this number might go up slightly. It is, of course, still worth noting that’s much higher than most other award shows in recent years, including the Golden Globes, Emmys and Grammys.

It’s difficult to say exactly why the show underperformed this year, especially since the viewership numbers for the Oscars had been on the rise recently.

Keeping in line with the last few years, the Academy opted for an earlier start time again, kicking off the ceremony at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, meaning the show stayed largely in primetime. Over the last few years, that has certainly seemed to help retain some of the audience who might have tapped out previously, when it was quite common for the Oscars telecast to go past 11 p.m. ET.

The show was also minutes away from being one of the longest Oscars ever, though. So, while it was an exciting night with some history making wins and even a few surprises, the sheer length of it was likely a turn-off for viewers.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another scored a leading six wins, and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners was next with four, ending a marathon awards season in which the studio mates duked it out over the course of several months. Amid the studio’s $110 billion acquisition by Paramount Skydance, Warner Bros led distributors with 11 statuettes. Netflix was next with seven, including three for Frankenstein. The streamer’s KPop Demon Hunters was the only other film to score multiple trophies Sunday, and no other studio got more than one.

Michael B. Jordan won the contentious Best Actor race for his dual role as Smoke and Stack in Sinners, following up his triumph at the Actor Awards two weeks ago. Jessie Buckley then surprised no one with her Best Actress win for Focus Features’ Hamnet.

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TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: abc; disney; oscars

[abb]

The numbers are in.

[Jane Long]

Who?

[fhayek]

The Oscars have been so woke for so long, that I have not watched them for generations. One would presume that people like me have left long ago, so the audience they are losing is less and less conservative and more and more moderate. Hollywood apparently is having a hard time learning the lessons of the actions of companies like Bud Light and Jaguar. You can crap on your customers if you want to, but the customers will just take their money and go elsewhere.

[BenLurkin]

What’s an Oscars?

[Republican Wildcat]

91% were still there.

[monkeyshine]

I asked Grok to summarize the new rules for a film to qualify for an Oscar. Among some other regulations including minimum theatrical releases in at least 10 of 50 “important” cities for at least 7 days, there is also this:

“Films must submit a confidential RAISE form (Academy Representation and Inclusion Standards Entry) and meet at least two out of four standards covering on-screen representation, creative leadership, industry access, and audience development. These promote diversity in underrepresented groups (e.g., racial/ethnic, women, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities). Failure to meet this disqualifies a film from Best Picture contention (though not other categories).”

So it makes me wonder a few things, such as how a creative person is forced to cram their vision into a box that meets these criteria. And then it made me wonder, if films HAVE to include “underrepresented” groups doesn’t that mean that they are at least perfectly well represented if not OVER-REPRESENTED? If it’s a quota, well, African Americans are 13%, gays are what somewhere around 2% to 5%, etc. If EVERY FILM has at least 50% then there is over-representation, just by math.

Me, I just want a good story and a well executed film. I don’t care if it’s Denzel or Spike Lee or Antoine Fuqua. They all make great movies. So do plenty of British and American “non-marginalized” people.

I guess my larger point is that the Oscars are down because audiences aren’t as interested or invested in the films that are being nominated. Really enjoyable films that audiences like to go see either do not qualify OR are consider schlock - even if they spend a fortune, films like Top Gun aren’t going to win.

[mass55th]

The only movie I saw that came out in the last year was “Nuremberg,” and that was only after it arrived on Netflix. I watched it over the weekend. I see it received no Oscar nominations. Maybe they should have allowed a black or tranny to play Goering, Dr. Kelley, a member of the prosecution, or one of the Judges.

[mewzilla]

Hollyweird, you did not choose wisely.

[SaxxonWoods]

Needs more Trans stuff?

[HYPOCRACY]

Nearly 18 million morons who should not be allowed to vote.

[Mr. N. Wolfe]

What was your opinion of the movie?

[xp38]

4 hours of a golden calf ceremony. The shine no longer holds.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I think your last paragraph makes some good points.

The impression I get is that many of these movies did not do very well at the box office. Me and people I know had not heard of most of these movies.

If that’s true of a lot of other people, If they had not heard of the movies, and didn’t care about them, then, they would not care to watch the Oscars.

[FoxInSocks]

I think the goal is to maintain a trend of increasing viewership, not a drop-off. But if a 10 percent per year decrease seems like a sustainable and reasonable business goal, good luck with that.

[RckyRaCoCo]

[Jeff Chandler]

Oh carp, I missed them again. I need to start marking my calendar.

[matt04]

Wait, the Oscars were on?

[Bullish]

I guess people are tired of spoiled snot-nosed elitists who think they know it all and their crummy woke movies.

[Texas Eagle]

The Oscars was on?

[central_va]

They had a gay old time.