Barbenheimer and a slew of good nominees brought viewers back to the Oscars
This year's Academy Awards had some of the best nominees in years. No wonder the Oscars received its highest ratings since 2020
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Say what you will about the 2024 Academy Awards, but the problem (if any) wasn’t the nominees. From Anatomy Of A Fall to Zone Of Interest, this year’s slate was among a robust crop of Oscar contenders in years. These were a diverse bunch, ranging from an I.P.-based franchise hopeful to a challenging experiment on the banality of evil to two three-hour talkies about American-born crimes of the 20th century. No wonder the Academy Awards is posting its highest ratings in four years.
Per Variety, 19.5 million people tuned in to witness Ryan Gosling’s ascension to the top of Mount Ryan with a blistering performance of “I’m Just Ken.” The number is up 4% from the previous year when another movie that people actually liked, Everything Everywhere All At Once, took home top prizes.
Moreover, the Academy spread the love around. While many assumed Oppenheimer would sweep the night, there was a good mix of who won awards. Sleeper hits like American Fiction and Holdovers took home Oscars, while burgeoning cultural talking point Poor Things nearly derailed all of Oppenheimer’s momentum. Heck, how bad can an Oscars where Hayao Miyazaki wins Best Animated Film really be?
It was the most-watched since the 2020 Oscars, when, surprise, another movie people like, Parasite, unexpectedly cleaned up. Additionally, the Academy acknowledged the moviegoing public’s obsession with serious comic book movies by nominating Todd Phillips’ Joker 11 times. That year, they had a strong Best Picture line-up, too, with diverse nominations of crowd-pleasers and challenging adult fare. Sure, there was no slap or La La Land flub, but in the end, if a boring Oscars means many deserving artists received recognition. We’ll take boring any day.
7 Comments
And Kimmel didn’t even get slapped.
4% higher? Who cares. If they let people stream it on youtube they’d get some actual viewers.
Every year I search for a way to stream it.It’s always so complicated. The Emmys are even worse. Luckily, I have an antenna, so I can still watch.
Right? I only watch two broadcast “events” a year: the superbowl and the Oscars. I could stream the game by buying a month of paramount or peacock; to watch the Oscars I had to sign up for a free trial for live tv streaming which you’ve just reminded me to cancel.
“Heck, how bad can an Oscars where Hayao Miyazaki wins Best Animated Film really be?”
Guess Shameik Moore has his own ideas about hat one…
https://www.avclub.com/spider-verse-shameik-moore-sore-loser-apology-miles-1851326462
A 4% increase tells me they’re holding steady, if anything; and that’s good! I think ABC and the Academy have a locked-in audience of people who grit their teeth and watch nearly four hours of ceremony; any attempt to change the minds of those not tuning in just risks alienating that built-in audience.
Still the 4th lowest rated Oscars of all time, and the coveted 18-49 demographic was down 5% from last year. Maybe building a wall to keep pro-Palestine protestors out was upsetting to young people.