94th Academy Awards Gets Higher Ratings Than Last Year’s Oscars

Extra individuals tuned in to the Academy Awards on Sunday night time than final 12 months, which was the least-watched Oscars broadcast ever, however viewership remained low amid disruptions to television- and movie-watching habits.

The 94th version of the awards present drew 13.73 million viewers on ABC and a 2.9 score amongst adults between 18 and 49 years previous, in accordance with preliminary nationwide rankings from Nielsen launched on Monday that didn’t embrace West Coast or on-line viewership. The early outcomes confirmed a 32 % enchancment on the ten.4 million individuals who watched final 12 months’s occasion, although Sunday night time’s present was nonetheless the second least-watched Oscars ever.

The telecast took a weird flip greater than two hours in, when Will Smith strode onstage and slapped Chris Rock within the face for telling a joke about his spouse. Mr. Smith then returned to his seat, and fewer than an hour later, he received the perfect actor prize.

The preliminary numbers from Nielsen didn’t point out whether or not there was a surge in viewership after the slap, which instantly ricocheted across the web.

Organizers have been determined to reverse a yearslong rankings slide for the Oscars, which noticed viewership final 12 months plummet 58 %. To perk up curiosity, they employed the comics Regina Corridor, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes to host a present that had been hostless since 2019; relegated some awards to a pretaped section to hurry issues up; and invited followers to vote on Twitter for his or her favourite movie (Zack Snyder’s “Military of the Useless”).