In spite of the fact that this year’s Academy Awards ceremony did not register a thunderous comeback, Sunday’s telecast managed to curtail the audience departure that dominated the past few years and did better in the ratings compared to 2008’s unsurpassed low.
An estimated 36.3 million viewers tuned in for ABC’s broadcast of the 81st Academy Awards, which were hosted for the first time by actor Hugh Jackman, according to preliminary figures released by Nielsen Media Research. Final numbers are expected today. The result represented a 13 percent increase weighed against last year’s unfortunate telecast with emcee Jon Stewart, which arrived just a few days following the resolution of the three-month writers strike.
Consistent with announcements made by the network, taken as a whole, 67.6 million viewers watched at least six minutes of Sunday’s big event.
In addition, ABC highlighted the fact that this year’s ceremony, which attracted conflicting appraisals with regard to its frivolous singing and dancing routines, was the No. 1 entertainment telecast so far this season, outshining last month’s Season 8 premiere of Fox’s talent show “American Idol,” which drew approximately 30.4 million viewers. A network spokesman informed the Los Angeles Times on Monday that executives were not available for comment.
The ratings kept up unpredictably well taking into account the fact that the field of best picture contenders generally included so-called “specialty films,” which are unknown to many television watchers who usually tune in crowds for the Academy Awards if hit films are among the nominees. For instance, the most-watched Oscar ceremony in recent years took place in 1998, when 55.2 million witnessed “Titanic,” the highest-grossing production of all time, win the award for best picture.
This year’s major winner, “Slumdog Millionaire,” which is set in a Mumbai ghetto, collected eight awards, including the top honor, although no famous stars were featured in the cast and was released by Fox Searchlight, a specialty-film division.
Numerous aficionados of last summer’s Batman blockbuster “The Dark Knight” had declared they would boycott the Oscar telecast as a result of the fact that the movie directed by Christopher Nolan was not included in the best picture category. However, it is hard to tell whether such a menace managed to imperil the show’s ratings.
Although the ratings surpassed the organizers’ expectations, they are not among the best results, since Sunday’s ceremony was still the third least-watched Oscar show in the last two decades, outshining only last year’s airing, which drew approximately 32 million viewers, and the 2003 telecast, which was watched by 33 million people.
