A long 89th Academy Awards continued the ABC telecast’s downward ratings trend.
Despite the long running time, there also wasn’t any big dip towards the end. The telecast was relatively steady throughout, pulling the biggest showing during the 9 o’clock ET hour.
Blame will likely be thrown at a variety of factors — including running time, the box-office pull of this year’s nominees and, for some, the expected political humor and messaging. But to rank as the least-watched Oscars on record, the ceremony would have had to fallen below the 2008 ceremony hosted by Jon Stewart. That show came in just shy of 32 million viewers after a 20.8 overnight rating.
A great deal of Oscar attention this year focused on how the telecast would handle the current political climate. The Golden Globes, after all, culminated in a rousing speech against U.S. President and Apprentice executive producer Donald Trump by lifetime achievement award winner Meryl Streep. And the Screen Actors Guild Awards, albeit a much smaller TV platform, were dominated by winners speaking out against the Trump administration’s travel ban targeting Muslims. Kimmel got in the obligatory jabs at Trump, but they weren’t as central to the tone of the telecast as many might have thought.
After 2015 and 2016 brought fatigue almost across the board, 2017 started off on an optimistic note with more viewers, year over year, tuning into the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Grammys.
But not the 2017 Oscar telecast.