Oscar Telecast Ratings Hit Eight-Year Low
Tuesday, March 1, 2016 at 10:00AM 
We’re currently awash in Oscar numbers and statistics, but there’s another Oscars number to be taken into account. After much discussion of the Academy as an entity leading up to Sunday night, it seemed like public interest would be high going into the ceremony, particularly given the Leo narrative and some high-grossing nominees like The Revenant, The Martian and Mad Max: Fury Road. But numbers for the Oscars telecast for this year have come in, and the Chris Rock-hosted show fell 6 percent to 34.3 million viewers in preliminary numbers and an eight-year ratings low...
If you haven’t already read Kieran’s analysis of Rock’s hosting stint you definitely should, because he gets at a lot of reasons why the ceremony was so uneven and might have put people off watching. But the most telling aspect of the ceremony’s ratings is that the 18-49 demographic only dropped 5 percent, which means that much of the lost audience was older viewers...
Sound familiar?
Not surprisingly, organisers of the boycott stemming from the #OscarsSoWhite campaign have been quick to claim credit for the ratings slump, and the New York Times is already helpfully suggesting that the politicization of the awards was the root cause. But the drop this year is in line with broader TV ratings trends. Most shows are down double-digit percentages from 2015, with the Oscars falling less than that.
Once more concrete numbers come out we'll get a better idea of what drops in viewership, if any, there were among non-white audiences, but early indications suggest that people tuned out progressively as the show went on, converse to last year. It would be hard to blame anyone for changing the channel during the low-energy second half - making people watching a roomful of millionaires buy cookies is maybe not the best way to appeal to the everyday viewer.
It does make you wonder what discussions are being had about the show behind the scenes. Cheryl Boone Isaacs surely has a contingency plan should the next slate of nminees prove to be just as monochromatic. The Oscars website might already give an indication of AMPAS' next move. Kevin Hart, who helped persuade Rock to host this year, auditioned hard while introducing The Weeknd's performance of "Earned It", giving one of the night's most impassioned pleas for diversity and coming off as a shoo-in for a callback.
Reader Comments (23)
The Leo "I'm overdue" Narrative? I have wondered what Matt Damon, with 3 acting noms, and 1 shared screenplay win from 20 years ago, thought of that. Damon's resume may not be as flashy, but I think he's a much subtler actor.
I dont live in the US but I do have cable TV that is showing Oscar live. This year surprisingly alot of my family, friends and colleagues actually watched the ceremony. Even those who don't usually watch. Granted at least half of them only tune in during just the last 30 minutes of its live telecast to watch Leonardo DiCaprio wins his first Oscar and then Social Media went crazy!
Off-topic, but I need to see those dresses and the fashion review! (I'm still bummed that Jose didn't cover the SAG Awards, which had some interesting colors and looks.)
I would not jump to any conclusions based on this, I don't think the boycott affected things one bit. I would offer this observation. The show didn't seem like it was as much fun, yes there will always be political messages, but the last time a show was really fun was when Ellen hosted.
Also the NYT promptly weighed in their review that the show is too long. They think it should somehow be no longer than a film - 2.5 hrs MAX.
The Academy shouldn't fall for this logic, when sports finals routinely take hours of time, this silly complaint about the length of time is illogical and hypocritical.
Ellen should be the regular host of the Oscars (though it's possible she doesn't want the job, since she already has her talk show). As someone who grew up watching Billy Crystal host the Oscars, I think she has a similar appeal. She seems to love movies, and she genuinely likes most of the nominees, too. I missed the host poking fun at the nominees this year (apart from the "Danish, Girl" skit, which was genuinely funny) and interaction with the nominees in the audience. She is really good at doing that.
I read that the broadcast ratings were up among men but down among women, which is interesting. Maybe they should nominate more films that would appeal to women!
@rick gould: I imagine Damon would think that he already has an Oscar, as you note.
Everyone I know who watched the Oscars has been telling me that they should hire Louis CK as the next host right away. And with Trumbo, American Hustle and Blue Jasmine on his recent resumé, he's certainly movie biz enough.
@Sean C: Not a Best Actor Oscar ; )
Louis CK was great and is a wonderful idea to host. But will he bring up ratings?
How can the Oscars become a must-see show, like the Super Bowl halftime? There's nothing that happens on the show that's actually "water cooler talk".
Those of us who live happily in our film-enthusiast bubble are exactly the wrong people to figure out how the show can reach a wider audience. We don't care if the show runs long. We've seen all the nominees. We want foreign films, docs and shorts to stay on the bill (they will be the first to be cut if ABC gets their fingers in the Academy's pie.) But for most people, they want gowns and jokes, and they want the movies they've actually seen to win. (That person-on-the-street in who's never heard of "Spotlight" exists in places beyond Compton.) There are a lot of things they can be looking at on their hand-held screens. They want to be entertained.
I really don't care if the ratings are low. The show itself is not the point of the Academy. The most annoying yearly article written is how the Oscars are out of touch with populist American films, as if we should be nominating Furious 7 for Best Picture so more people would watch (not saying this article is!). The People's Choice Awards has that market cornered. If adults don't care about adult films, in the words of Abby, I can't help you with that. Dubious choices aside, the Oscars are the one night a year where people think about all the effort and craft that goes into filmmaking. Oscar ratings are irrelevant. It's not an episodic show and it's clearly not for everyone and doesn't need to be.
Cut down on all those Dec releases and move the awards to late January,don't listen to the campaigning,people should go with what they really like not what the shows and campaigners tell them.
John - well said. Let's hope the Academy sticks to their guns.
I second LadyEdith: Hear hear, John! I hate that "Oscars are Out of Touch" article every time I read it, every consecutive year that it shows up.
I think it's a little weird to say that the Academy and/or ABC shouldn't be concerned about the ratings in general because after all, it is a televised show that cost money. It can't be cheap to produce this show and since it runs quite long, that's a lot of ad revenue they're losing. In saying that, I think the Academy and ABC have to be realistic about the Oscars as an event. If they're worried that the Oscars could potential fall behind other awards show then I understand them being concerned. However, if they want to get Superbowl-like numbers then that's a whole other story.
The fact of the matter is general audiences/the majority of people in this country just don't value movies the way they do sports (particularly football/the Superbowl). Most people just consider movies as entertainment; and the average movie goer sees maybe one film a year, which more than likely won't be any of the films in contention for awards. Then you have the fact that Sports are free and easy to watch while you have to make an effort to take a trip to the movies. Lastly, a lot people just view the Oscars as a bunch of rich people needlessly patting themselves on the back.
Ultimately, the Academy and ABC are just going to have to accept that they're never going to get mega blockbuster numbers for the Oscars no matter what they do. They're certainly things that can be done to improve the show for those that do watch but there are certain things that only Hollywood in general can fix. The Academy and ABC shouldn't worry to much, though, because even with the lower ratings the Oscars will still be the biggest non-sport TV event of the year.
That trip to the Compton movie theater to show all the out of touch black people was foul, Chris. I wish he'd stop doing that shit. There are some damn black people in the world who knew what Carol was and white people who never heard of Trumbo and Spotlight. The world is round, people! Awful ceremony this year.
@Dorian
I thought the point there was that the Oscars were out of touch with black people, not the other way around.
Wasn't a high point of the show either way, but yeah, i read it the opposite way.
The point I was making is that the Oscars in general are out of touch.
I'm not saying the answer is to nominate Furious 7 and Star Wars for Best Picture, but at some point, the disconnect between the "Academy" and Average Joe will have to lessen if the Oscars are to stay relevant in the future. That isn't a "black" thing at all, thanks. What made the Compton thing so shitty was assuming it was only black audiences in this oh so white year that just didn't "get it." Oh look at all the white millionaires laughing at the unwashed black masses. Check the receipts for Brooklyn and Trumbo and Spotlight. It wasn't just black audiences who didn't know or give a damn about those films this year. Chris Rock playing the race card all night long seriously rubbed my circle of friends the wrong way. He shouldn't be invited back to host.
Well, the show I watched without commercial alone was more than 2.5 hours. I can't even imagine it with the commercials. And they were bound to lose viewers this years due to all the brouhaha thing.
@John: While I agree with you on some counts, I think the ratings for the telecast are very much relevant simply because we've reached a point where AMPAS has to be thinking very hard about the way they need to package the Oscars, and the ceremony itself is a big part of that.
At this stage, it's more than likely that ratings will continue to slip in most coming years, but what I'm interested to see is how AMPAS reacts to that: whether or not it'll result in further categories being cut from the ceremony in favour of live performances (it's working so well for the Grammys, after all...), what kind of hosts we get in the future, and so on. What I'd really like to see is an Oscars more akin to the Andy Samberg-hosted Emmys, which managed to be fun, irreverent and celebratory all at once.
The ratings of the Oscars are still well above all other awards shows but every yr the Oscars worry about this. They should absolutely not shorten the show. It's an event. You kind of need to be long to be an event. The Tony Awards got more boring when they started doing things off the air (due to ratings demand). The Grammys and Emmys didn't even think about how to include all their awards and just kept adding so soon only like 10% of the actual awards will be on the air. The Oscars are still the awards show that the biggest swath of people care about.
It's never going to be the Superbowl as they're not actually ACTING THE MOVIES ON STAGE TO DETERMINE WHO'S THE WINNER and being scored throughout the night. It's not a game show or a sports event.
Dorian -- the #OscarsSoWhite complaint has unfortunately become the whole story which is disappointing -- like so many ideology-driven stories it feeds on its own righteous fury and there's really no way to solve it (other than the way it should be solved -- the long process of achieving actual change within a systemically exclusionary industry that makes movies) . I've noted with disappointment that nobody who previously complained about the total whiteness of the Oscars has congratulated them or even noticed that they awarded Mexicans, Pakistanis and Brits of Indian descent this year. I'm not saying people are doing this intentionally. I just think that In truth people don't actually care... unless it's about them. This is not a knock on black people but a knock on humanity ;) -- gay people don't always care about non gay rights civil rights causes, Asians don't always care about black people, black people don't always care about hispanic people, White people don't always care about anyone but themselves since they are the "default"... which is itself a huge problem that there *is* a default in the system.
my point is. I don't even know how the world is going to get past this. People like to be angry with each other and to scapegoat other groups that don't look or act like them --- note the current political season. Most communities have prejudices about other communities. I'm thinking of rewatching Spike Lee's SUMMER OF SAM because I remember it being fascinatingly layered about the way communities are quick to scapegoat "the other" when they can find a way.
Oh and also: what John said.
Welll - i have lots of opinions. #1 - it was a pain in the ass to constantly hear the racial harping. gets ridiculous. It's really a film industry problem not an academy problem. otherwise make it a requirement that a minimum of two black actors have to be nominated in every category - make it like college admittance or the hiring of firemen or police officers. Oscar nomination quotas. #2 - produce it like the tony awards are produced - go in & out of breaks announcing who won the boring awards and show the winner saying one line from their acceptance speech. #3 - make it 2 hours......it's ridiculous to have it drag on for hours & hours. I know ABC wants it 3.5 hours so they can cram in more commercials. But if the ratings continue to decline, spot prices will drop. #4. yes - a traditional superbowl half-time like moment should be created. #5 - celebrate movies past & present....bring back old stars mixed with young stars. There were no presenters over the age of 30 it seemed like. Nicholson, Kim Novak, past winners, faye dunaway, warren beatty, streisand.....olivia dehavilland.....it really needs to be a better show. look at the Grammy awards & tony awards - both are entertaining. i thought this year's show was horrible - boring.
If ABC wants the Oscars to be comparable to the Super Bowl in terms of ratings, then they need to tap into the zeitgeist a bit more and pay attention to what drives people to programs like that and the Grammys.
I personally think there are a few easy ways to make the Oscars more of an event that will get people to tune in.
1. Give the Oscars a half-time show. Instead of inserting a few best song performances throughout the program, have a big medley performance with whichever performers they've deemed worthy enough to actually be a part of the show or hire a huge name talent to do a medley performance. Beyonce, Madonna, and Lady Gaga are all great choices that also provide a link between the music and movie industries and provide eyeballs for ratings.
2. Choose a host that makes sense, someone popular with mainstream audiences who has a connection to the film industry. Kevin Hart would be a fun choice, Ellen was great both times at bat, and Louis C.K, Tina Fey and even George Clooney are all entertainers who have received great responses anytime they've presented and are names audiences respect. Hell, even Eddie Murphy would have been an attention-grabbing if not all-together interesting host of the show.
3. I'm not a huge fan of this idea as I actually love the technical side of filmmaking, but the show needs to be streamlined for length. Do this by taking the short categories, and possibly the sound categories off the broadcast and announce them at a different awards ceremony or luncheon. That would be five fewer presenter schticks, and five less speeches to take up time. If they want ratings up, that is an easy way to prevent people from changing the channel or turning off the tv.