2024 Oscar Ratings – A Small Lift

The Oscar ratings rose from last year, or as The Hollywood Reporter says, a ‘post-pandemic high.’ Let’s add it to the chart to see how it looks:

The Hollywood Reporter says:

The Jimmy Kimmel-hosted telecast on ABC averaged 19.5 million viewers, according to time zone-adjusted fast national ratings from Nielsen. That’s a 4 percent increase from a year ago. The 96th Academy Awards scored the biggest audience for any awards show since 2020, when that year’s Oscars — held a month before the U.S. went into lockdown in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic — drew 23.64 million viewers.

And here’s my hacked version of Statista’s chart:

I had predicted much higher ratings, like 29. But I was wrong. The Academy might not care about ratings over the long haul. My guess is that they’re making a jump to streaming like the SAG Awards once their contract is up so they can do what they love to do without the pressure of ratings. The idea is that network television is over and that no one watches primetime. We know that isn’t true, of course, as people do watch the Superbowl. Lots of people watch it, and this past year was the highest in history. Like, 100 million more than watched the Oscars.

The Oscars are not the Super Bowl. I think they’re moving in the right direction, and I hope they keep going further in this direction. Start inviting people from the banished outer regions, for instance. Don’t always make participation dependent upon ideology. Yes, bring in Ricky Gervais, yes, dump Jimmy Kimmel. There is a reason people don’t watch his show anymore because they’re getting sick of being lectured and chastised by the privileged aristocracy.

The more they think of their audiences, the better off both Hollywood and the Oscars will be. You never lose betting on the free market. The mistake with Hollywood (and the Left overall) is prioritizing having a good image. The artists are always better off existing on the fringe. But, all in all, they did better than last year. And that’s better than it could have been.

I think they should shrink the Best Picture race down to five. I will keep saying it until they do it. And I hope they do.