The Oscars telecast, which occupied almost four hours of airtime Sunday on ABC, delivered an average of 26.5 million viewers, Variety reports.
“While that was good enough to handily top all of Sunday’s broadcast competition and most of the award shows of the past year, it is still the least-watched Oscars to date,” the story reports, noting: “The drop-off was not entirely unexpected, as the audiences for most award shows have seen declines in recent years. As it stands, the 2018 Oscars are down approximately 19% compared to 2017.”
In Nielsen overnights for the metered markets, the 8 p.m.-11 p.m. segment of the ABC broadcast averaged an 18.9 household rating and 32 share — down about 16% from the 22.5/37 delivered by last year’s Oscars, although time zone differences account for some of the variation in the preliminary ratings, Variety notes.
“In the fast nationals, which are also not time zone adjusted, the Oscars telecast averaged a 6.4 rating in adults 18-49 and 24.4 million viewers, compared to the 8.7 rating and 29.1 million viewers the 2017 telecast drew in the preliminary numbers,” Variety adds, noting that the 2017 telecast eventually rose to a 9.1 and 32.9 million viewers.
The film that best exemplified the concept of female empowerment was Wonder Woman. Female lead and director in a genre where women had virtually no presence. The movie and the director were completely overlooked. Wonder Woman’s gross was more than all the Oscar nominees combined. It should have been nominated and if it had been the viewship would have been significantly higher because people had seen the movie and would have had an interest. Let’s hope that the Black Panther gets better treatment. If it does the ratings will go up.