Millions watched the Oscars this year, even with Last Of Us lurking on HBO
The 95th annual Academy Awards brought in 18.7 million viewers last night, a 12% increase over last year.
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Despite all those murderous mushrooms on HBO, people tuned into the 95th annual Academy Awards. The telecast, which was largely incident-free, save for an imposter mule or two, saw a 12% increase over last year, with 18.7 million viewers. In addition, this year’s ceremony featured a group of nominees that had a broader appeal to younger and international demographics, with the Academy awarding movies that people went to see in theaters. Well, except for All Quiet On The Western Front, which took home four of the most surprising wins of the night.
Things were different this year. There was no industry-shifting celebrity brawl to help the Oscars become “the most social Oscars telecast on record,” with viewers tweeting, “can you believe Will Smith just slapped Chris Rock” as the telecast took a 30-minute break. Instead, Jimmy Kimmel returned to host for the first time since 2018, a booking followed by three consecutive host-free years, and those weren’t even pandemic related. That was a bid to shake up the show. But it seems hosts help move the show along, seeing as Kimmel led a straightforward, no-nonsense ceremony, complete with musical performances and celebrities winning awards.
The big worry this year was The Last Of Us. Many believed that, like the Super Bowl, when The Last Of Us aired the Friday before to avoid competition, counterprogramming would be bad for business. The Home Box Office must’ve been pretty confident they’d still have an audience for their non-zombie zombie show because the biggest show of the season was not moving for the freaking Oscars.
In the end, they were both winners. Adorable. The Last Of Us reached another series high, drawing 8.2 million viewers, continuing its consistent weekly viewership growth. Variety notes the show did even better this week than the last time they were up against an awards show. Episode 4 took in 7.5 million viewers against the Grammys. To be fair, it’s the Grammys.
There are many reasons why people tuned into this year’s Oscars. Some were probably hoping for another celebrity mix-em-up, others a chance to see a bizarre close-up of Lady Gaga singing that song from Top Gun. Even more likely is that the nominees were movies people saw, such as Everything Everywhere All At Once, Top Gun: Maverick, Elvis, and Avatar: The Way Of Water. Lesson learned: Stop giving awards to whatever Green Book came out this year.
27 Comments
Well, except for All Quiet on the Western Front,
which took home four of the most surprising wins of the night.
Huh? The only one that could be considered a surprise is Production Design.
What about score? Was Babylon really never in contention? I personally thought All Quiet’s score was terribly ineffective, Great Value Zimmer. BWAM BWAM BWAM.
If BWAM BWAM BWAM didn’t pierce your very soul, then it clearly wasn’t for you.
Score was definitely a close call. It’s appalling Babylon didn’t win there.
Pour me some bubbly, now it’s all you gotta do
Lots of people saw Green Book.
TLOU is on streaming but you only get to see someone get slapped live if you tune in to the Oscars at the time.
There’s a delay, so you didn’t actually get to see the smack live.
Physics plot twist: No one saw it live, not even Will Smith.
They didn’t get me. I knew after last year, the producers would clamp down on all the risks and made sure the show went without any incident. In other words, boring.An exciting show would’ve had Chris Rock host.
There is no way in hell they didn’t beg him to do it.
In other words, actually tasteful. Sorry the show’s not for you.
That’s okay. These things are cyclical.
I refused to pay money to watch this show. Was it really boring? I looked at the clock between the announcement from the second-to-last award and the Best Picture and it was a very long wait. What were they doing in all of that time?
It was on ABC? What money?
Do you think that AMC is fre?. You have to use hulu or some other provider. Maybe you get it with internet or your phone plan, but it isn’t free, dude. Nothing is.
ABC is literally free with an antennae on your TV. That still exists (assuming you don’t live WAY out in the woods)
It the Oscars isn’t a fight to the death then what’s the point?
I watched it just to see EEAAO clean house and see history being made. I was not disappointed.
Didn’t watch it either and now I have no idea what I should be outraged about.
An exciting show would have had Will Smith host.
Oh so that’s what happens when the Academy honors films audiences actually watched.
Yeah, but I think it doesn’t have anything to do with nominating blockbusters that make a shit-ton of money. Most Avatar/Top Gun Maverick fans couldn’t care less about Oscars, and most people interested in Oscar wins probably aren’t really huge on either movie. This year, it was really the fan base for Everything Everywhere and a few actors (Yeoh, Quan, Fraser, to a lesser extent Bassett, Hsu and Curtis) that had enough people really wanting to see if they won. I think that’s a very specific sweet spot of an audience that either watches or tunes out on any given year. Those who have an emotional skin in the game.
It’s because they brought the Shorts categories back. Would have been riots in the streets.
Well it was unfair last year when they gave multiple awards to Pants but completely ignored Shorts.
And yet they still to this day ignore Skorts.
Maybe people really love Pedro Pascal and the Oscars were able to take advantage of that having him present while The Last of Us was also on.