The ratings for Sunday’s Oscars telecast were higher than thought.
The total viewers came to almost 17 million, up from 10 million in 2021. It’s still the second lowest rated Oscars of all time, but a clear improvement from last year.
Is your cup half empty or half full?
Even with movies that didn’t have big box office, a Best Picture that didn’t play in theaters, and a show longer than ever, the numbers are up considerably.
Factor in that once Will Smith snapped, lost his mind, and ran onto the stage to punch Chris Rock, word spread quickly on the internet. Traffic on this site rose so fast that we were knocked off our server for around 15 minutes! People tuned in for that last 40 minutes, which added to the numbers.
Some things didn’t work but others did. The three hosts — Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, and Regina Hall — were very good, and so were the musical numbers. Amy as Spider Man was hilarious. What didn’t work were the In Memoriam, and the James Bond tribute. The latter was rather a disaster considering ex-Bond Timothy Dalton lives in LA, and Dame Judi Dench flew in from the UK. Neither was involved, nor was faux Bond George Lazenby.
But if the Oscars were up in audience with movies like “Belfast” and “CODA” imagine what they could be with films that have bigger fan bases. There’s always next year…
