Oscars draw lowest US audience since 2008 with 32.9 million viewers
ABC's Sunday night broadcast of the Academy Awards hosted by comic Jimmy Kimmel drew the smallest audience since 2008 despite a memorable ending that will go down in history, Reuters reports.
Some 32.9 million U.S. viewers watched the ceremony, a 4 percent drop from the 2016 Oscars which drew 34.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen data released on Monday by ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co (DIS.N). The 2008 Oscars averaged 32 million viewers. The awards ceremony went a few minutes past midnight on the East Coast and ended in controversy when "La La Land" was mistakenly named best picture winner after presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were given the wrong envelope. The actual winner, announced minutes later, was "Moonlight."
The chaotic and heart-stopping finale made for great television, but came too late to help ratings.
Viewership may have declined because “La La Land” had been a heavy favorite to sweep the awards, leaving little suspense for the TV audience, said Jeff Bock, senior box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations
Co.
“There was a foregone conclusion that ‘La La Land’ was going to sweep, and there's not much intrigue to knowing the outcome,” Bock said. “Obviously, that was one of the most exciting endings in Hollywood history."