I figured it would bomb but I did not realize how big the crater would be. From Variety:
TV Ratings: Oscars Plummet to Record Low, Down 58% Compared to Last Year
The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony, broadcast live from both Union Station and the Dolby Theatre in L.A. on ABC, hit a staggering low.
Per Nielsen Live+Same Day preliminary national numbers, an average of 9.85 million viewers tuned in on Sunday evening to watch a more intimate and stripped-down version of the Oscars in the midst of a pandemic. That’s a 58.3%, 13.75 million viewer drop-off from last year. The Academy’s third host-less show in a row scored a 1.9 rating among adults 18-49 in the fast national ratings, a 64.2% dip from 2020.
For comparison, last year’s ceremony garnered a 5.3 rating in the key demographic and 23.6 million viewers per the night’s time-zone adjusted fast national charts. The Oscars in 2019 delivered a 7.7 rating in adults 18-49 and 29.6 million viewers. While up 12% from 2018, that viewership figure represented the second-smallest audience ever for an Academy Awards telecast at the time. 2018 delivered the previous smallest viewership tally with 26.5 million viewers.
Don Surber had an excellent post on this and offered these viewership numbers:
2014: 43.7M
2015: 37.2M
2016: 34.4M
2017: 33M
2018: 26.6M
2019: 29.6M
2020: 23.6M
2021: 9.8M
Ouch! For an event like the Oscars, eyeballs are everything. Good. Maybe they will wake up.
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