Oscars Draw Record Low Audience With 23.6 Million Viewers
The network said Monday the program attracted 23.6 million viewers, the lowest since Nielsen began providing audience totals.
(Bloomberg) -- ABC’s broadcast of the 92nd Academy Awards drew the smallest TV audience in the history of the broadcast, showing even live programming is struggling in the streaming era.
The network said Monday the program attracted 23.6 million viewers, the lowest since Nielsen began providing audience totals in 1974. The tally was also down from last year’s 29.6 million.
Ratings for the Oscars have been slipping since their 1998 peak of 55.2 million viewers, when the blockbuster “Titanic” emerged as the big winner. The Academy and Walt Disney’s ABC division have tried to speed up the show, which often runs longer than three hours.
The Oscars broadcast has aired without an official host for the last two years, in an effort to move the program along. The academy, which has been under fire for a lack of diversity in its membership and nominees, has added more women and minorities to its ranks of Oscar voters.
Show Criticized
Still, this year’s event was criticized, often from the stage, for not having more women and people of color in the running.
The TV audience declined even though Netflix Inc. heavily promoted its films, including its two best-picture nominees, “The Irishman” and “Marriage Story,” to its 67.1 million U.S. and Canadian subscribers.
The big winner, “Parasite,” was the first-ever foreign language film to take home the best picture prize. The South Korean production continues a trend of relatively smaller, artier films scoring the industry’s highest award, a development that could also influence how many people tune in to watch.
ABC noted that the Oscars continue to outdraw other awards shows on TV, such as the Grammys and the Golden Globes.
To battle streamers, broadcasters are investing heavily in live sports and other events like awards shows that people are less likely to watch on a delayed basis. They’re also launching their own online services.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rob Golum in Los Angeles at rgolum@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Rob Golum, Lisa Wolfson
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