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ABC’s Oscars Telecast Pulls Off a Feat NBC’s Olympics Couldn’t Do — in Three Tries

Mar 3, 2014  •  Post A Comment

ABC’s broadcast Sunday night of the Academy Awards accomplished a feat that NBC’s telecast of the Olympics was unable to do on three consecutive Sundays. Deadline.com reports that the Oscars beat AMC’s juggernaut "The Walking Dead" in the ratings, going head-to-head.

The zombie drama pulled a 6.4 average rating in the key 18-49 at 9 p.m. Sunday night, along with 8.1 million viewers in the demo, the piece reports. That fell 46% short of the Oscars’ 12.0 average rating and 15.245 million demo viewers during the hour, based on preliminary fast nationals.

In total viewers, "The Walking Dead" didn’t even come close against the Oscars — the program that is traditionally the most-watched telecast of the year after the Super Bowl. "Walking Dead" averaged 12.6 million total viewers, to 40.091 million for the Oscars from 9-10 p.m.

Spanning more than three hours, the Oscars averaged 43.0 million viewers overall.

"On February 23, ‘The Walking Dead’ pulled in 6.6 rating with 8.4 million viewers in the demo against the Closing Ceremony of the Sochi Winter Games," the report notes. "Head-to-head with ‘Walking Dead’ in the time slot, the end of the Sochi Olympics pulled in a 3.2 rating with 4.09 million viewers in the key demo."

The NBC telecast of the Closing Ceremony averaged 15.21 million total viewers in the 9 p.m. hour and 15.3 million for its full run from 8:30-10:30 p.m., the report notes, adding: "The Sochi finale was the lowest-rated Winter Olympics ender ever for a Games that also hit historic lows among adults 18-49."

"The Walking Dead" also beat NBC’s Olympics the previous two Sundays, Feb. 9 and 17, in the key demo, the report notes.

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2 Comments

  1. The Oscar’s are 3 1/2 hours long as supposed to 1 hour of the walking dead not much of a fair comparison!

  2. It takes a lot less room on the DVR to record Walking Dead. AND…people know Walking Dead will be on VOD the next day too, but the Oscars won’t. All the regular viewers that watch Walking Dead WILL see it.

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