The Last Of Us’ ratings are so good that it might take a bite out of the Academy Awards’ ratings
The Last Of Us' finale is airing against the Oscars, and there's a very tiny chance that it might get better ratings
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It seems pretty unlikely, and it would require a perfect confluence of events—specifically “everyone wants to watch The Last Of Us” and “nobody wants to watch the Oscars—but there’s a small chance that HBO’s high-profile video game adaptation might get better ratings than the Academy Awards on Sunday. Again, it probably won’t happen… it’s silly to think that it could… but it miiiight.
The reason for this is that The Last Of Us has been trending upwards over the last few weeks, with Variety reporting that Warner Bros. Discovery says the most recent episode was the most-viewed so far, pulling in 8.1 million viewers on Sunday night (the previous record for the show was 7.5 million, which it got a few weeks ago). The show still has a lot of momentum behind it, and the general public seems to like each episode as much as the last, so who’s to say it won’t keep getting more viewers for episode nine on Sunday night? Plus, the next episode is the finale, and if any episode is going to be a ratings bonanza, it’s that one.
Meanwhile, the other thing airing this Sunday night is the Academy Awards, which—save for a small uptick last year—has been trending down, down, downwards. Last year’s Oscars got the second-lowest ratings for the show ever, 13.7 million, with 2021 being the (bad) record holder with 9.8 million. It stands to reason that this year’s event will end up in a similar place, and that’s without even taking into account anyone who would’ve watched the Oscars but chooses to stick their neck out and see what kind of fungus dudes are chasing Joel and Ellie that night.
And before you say “surely people want to see someone get slapped again,” we must point out that the 2018 Academy Awards, the one after they read the wrong Best Picture winner, got worse ratings than the previous year—meaning, the last time the Oscars had a big scandal during the show, it did not translate to more viewers tuning in the following year. The Oscars have already put together a “crisis team” to make sure nobody else gets slapped, which means nobody is getting slapped, which means… if you were hoping someone would get slapped, you should probably just watch The Last Of Us. There’s probably a better chance of them reading the wrong Best Picture winner again than someone getting slapped, but that’s also probably not a good reason to tune in.
17 Comments
Yeah, nobody is getting slapped, but there is a slight chance that, during Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue, Brendan Frasier might cry.
If you can assure me that he’ll stumble around yelling ‘WHAT THE FUCK??’ like Robotman, I would actually watch.
At this point a reairing of This is Us finale would draw bigger numbers then the Academy Awards.
Remember when Mandy Moore dropped that clicker like a wet bag of shit?Hell of a shot.
Ahhh nah man did you hear about that SLAP last year?!? You’ve gotta watch the Oscars to see if another moment like that will happen (they’re paying me to say this).
if you were hoping someone would get slapped, you should probably just watch The Last Of Us.I see you’ve watched the most recent TLOU episode as well.
nice that took me a second
Already cringing at all the obvious slap-related bits and gags everyone will feel compelled to do with a wink: Kimmel introducing Guillermo (with the previous 3 hosts?) as ‘slap security’, two presenters going off-script to re-enact their own ‘sure-to-be-viral’ slap bit, a montage of famous slaps in film like Cher in ‘Moonstruck’, some over the top acceptance speech ‘I’m so excited I could slap somebody…BUT I WON’T!’, cut to security. They can’t help themselves.
This would actually be a decent Oscars drinking game. Drink every time they mention the slap. I don’t think you’re wrong in your prediction at all.
There will totally be a “snap out of it!” montage. Great prediction
Hahaha what hilarious assholes they are for standing aside the night of the Superbowl but then they air their finale opposite the Oscars. Ha!
The Super Bowl is a much, much, much, much bigger event than the Academy Awards. The Super Bowl is watched by over 110m people while the Academy Awards is at 15m or so nowadays. TLOU didn’t stand aside for the Super Bowl, it rescheduled because its viewership would have gotten wrecked by it. Same is not true for the Academy Awards.
I wonder what completely innocuous thing a white man will do in the vicinity of a Black woman that produces millions of Tweets and then blog articles about the Tweets.
fake news. you think people are going to watch the season finale of the world’s current most popular show over getting preached at by Sean Penn?
To compete with The Last of Us, the producers of the Academy Awards telecast will release virulent spore clouds into the theater.
The 9pm to 10pm Oscars broadcast is generally even more terrible than the rest of the show, best live action short, some unfunny bit that will grind the show to a halt and probably 2 more music performance. Watch Last of Us for that hour instead (and apparently it’s only 45 minutes episode anyway)