This year’s Oscars ceremony was down 10% in the overnights from last year’s decade-best score. It’s the show’s worst ratings since 2011.
According to Nielsen overnight estimates measuring 56 of the nation’s biggest markets, last night’s “87th Academy Awards” telecast on ABC, hosted by first-timer Neil Patrick Harris, averaged a 25.0 household rating/38 share, the show’s lowest rating since a 24.5 in 2011.
Nielsen will issue total-viewer estimates later today.
Los Angeles ranked as the top-rated market for the Oscars (33.5 household rating), up 3% from last year. But key to the ratings declines overall were double-digit falloffs in both New York (down 13% to 32.4) and Chicago (down 10% to 32.5).
Last year’s show, hosted by the far more entertaining Ellen DeGeneres, averaged a 27.9 overnight household rating/41 share that translated into a 10-year best 43.74 million viewers, according to Nielsen — the third time in five years the Oscars had been above the 40-million viewer mark. And in adults 18-49, its 13.1 rating/33 share in the nationals was up a smidge from 2013 for a four-year high.
With social media driving interest, awards shows in general had been on a ratings roll. But some of the air seems to have come out of the balloon this season.
Earlier this month, the Grammy Awards on CBS (8.3 rating/23 share in adults 18-49, 24.82 million viewers overall) was down 16% in the demo and 13% in total viewers from last year for the show’s lowest numbers in six years. Still, the kudocast figures to finish the season ranked second to the Oscars among the top-rated non-football programs.
Adults 18-49 ratings were also lower for the “CMA Awards” on ABC (down 4%, 4.5 vs. 4.7), the “American Music Awards” on ABC (down 16%, 3.8 vs. 4.5) and the “Golden Globe Awards” on NBC (down 11%, 5.8 vs. 6.5).
Unfamiliarity with some of the most honored films may have contributed to the lower tune-in for the 2015 ratings.
Of this year’s best picture nominees — “American Sniper,” “Birdman,” “Boyhood,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The Imitation Game,” “Selma,” “The Theory of Everything,” and “Whiplash” — only “American Sniper” can be considered a box office hit.
“Birdman,” the big winner of the night, winning the top prize as well as others including best original screenplay and best director for Alejandro González Iñárritu, has grossed only $33 million at the box-office.
