Was it something Jon Stewart said? With 32 million viewers, last night’s Academy Awards telecast appears to be the least-watched Oscars in history. Preliminary numbers indicate that Sunday night’s show was down 21 percent in viewers from the previous year, when The Departed won best picture, and down 42 percent during Oscar’s peak season, when Titanic won in the 1998 ceremony. The previous low for an Oscar telecast was in 2003 (33.05 million), the year Chicago was named best pic.
Even so, the Oscars still rank as the second most-watched entertainment program this season behind the debut of American Idol last month (33.4 million).
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I’m not that shocked. People tune into the Oscars to root on movies they saw and actors they know and love. The only best picture nominee to be a box office hit was Juno and, with the exception of George Cloony, most of the actors and actresses were not well known stars.
I just didn’t hear a a lot of people who were excited about the movies this year. In fact, the question I heard most around the office today was “What was No Country for Old Men about?”. People weren’t going to stay up until midnight to see what movie they never heard of was going to get the award.
I really hope they don’t blame Jon Stewart or the writers for the low ratings. It really comes down to the nominees. In years when the nominees are the highest grossing films (like Titanic) people tune in. End of story.
I actually stopped watching after the best actress award was announced, since I knew that Daniel Day Lewis would win, and No Country for Old Men would win. I was surprised with Tilda Swinton’s win, and her speech was priceless (making fun of George’s “batsuit.”) And Marion Coutillard (spelling?)’s reaction to her win was truly a great moment, as was the win for Best Original Song from the movie “once.” Otherwise…zzzz…..
I’m not surprised. I love movies and I thought that it was incredibly boring. Jon is great on his own show, but a terrible Oscar host. It would be more enjoyable if it really celebrated movies and didn’t try to be “current” with a lot of stupid humor. Cut it down to two hours, give out awards and only perform the songs that are enjoyable (making that poor girl sing about cleaning the toilet without the animation was just cruel). The last hour was best–it moved along with awards and without awkward humor and bad songs.
Uh…could it be the fact that there were a million needless montages? how about the fact that the people and movies nominated were barely watched by the masses? i think had more popular movies like Pirate of the Caribbean or Bourne Ultimatum been been nonminated in anything other than costumes and sound, more people would have cared.
I didn’t watch because I have not seen any of the movies. Also, where were the major movie stars? Brad and Angelina, Reese Witherspoon, Julia Roberts, Leo DeCaprio? I realize they were not nominated, but thats the problems. The nominees were mostly unheard of, so people weren’t interested. I think another problem is, there is just no mystery anymore with the celebrities. In the days of Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, and then later with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, we didn’t have the intense media coverage and paparazzi 24/7. It was a treat and exciting to see them at the Oscars, because you weren’t bombarded with them on mags, internet, etc…. It just seems that in the last 10 or so years, Oscar just isn’t that exciting anymore.
I turned it off the moment George Clooney said there’s one thing constant about the Oscar awards: it’s long. Ooops, way past my bedtime, sorry…
I hope that next year we will see Leo, Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep and Bradgelina get nominated… then I’ll tune in. I haven’t heard or seen half the nominees. Thats what the Indie Spirit awards are for, isn’t it. I wanna see the big stars and the great movies nominated. I get it already, indie flicks deserve a spot, but don’t overdue it with the indies taking up 80% of the nods. Bring back Julia, Brad and Jack… Bring back the old Oscars filled with stars, and not just as presenters. Thanks
I turned it off after Ruby Dee lost. She was our only chance for an American and a person of “color” to win….after that I knew who was going to win – DDL, Bardem, NC, Marion and the Once song. It was an efficient show. But I agree with the others — there are no “stars” and the movies are not “big”. I can’t remember the last time I actually cried at the end of a movie — maybe it was 3 years ago, M$B, or maybe it was Freedom Writers…but since that time I just haven’t had any emotional attachment to a movie. There were very good entertaining movies like Amern. Gangster, but that’s one out of how many? And I’m not into the toilet humor comedies that Hollywood is putting out. If I have to catchup on movies I download from AMZ Unbox or Movielink. Jon was good.
To be expected. I’ve tried to see the movies nominated but the theaters near me never showed them and by the time they were available on DVD I just didn’t have the time or wasn’t in the mood for their serious gloomy atmosphear. It’s a shame that just because a movie is popular that it shouldn’t be considered and what can we still say about comedy actors…
They should have tried leaking the info that Owen Wilson was presenting (his publicist is a GENIUS – by scoring him a presenting gig, she gets his face back out there in a BIG way with miminal work from him and gets a chance to remind people that he is Academy-award nominated – so, you know, just forget all about all that OTHER stuff.)
I also blame the nominees, not Jon. I mean, I had never even heard of any of the winners prior to this Oscar season. That doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve to win, but it definitely effects people tuning in.
Jon Stewart?? That guy was funny way back in ‘94. is he funny now?? absolutely not. Dear Jon – you hate George Bush. we get it. please write some fresh material…..
I didn’t bother watching the Oscars this year because I didn’t care for any of the nominees in the major categories–except for Atonement which I knew wasn’t favored to win. Most of the movies that I thought were amongst the best of the year weren’t even nominated in the major categories, such as Dan in Real Life, Lars and the Real Girl, Across the Universe, The Kite Runner, and Waitress. Why should I watch the Oscars? Especially when they honor such crappy movies like No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood.
It really was just the lack of blockbuster hits and popular stars nominated. I personally loved that because it meant that interesting, well done films were rewarded instead of more Oscar bait. But I could see where that would make people less likely to watch.
Jon Stewart is cute. I saw his profile on millionaire personals site WealthyRomance.com last week. What is he looking for on that site.
2 words. Writer’s Strike.
Maybe they should have nominated the cartoon about the rat — anything that people saw and liked.
You know Oscar’s on Sunday, and I have to work in the morning… with a show that ran until almost 11 (central time) I had issues. It’s one thing to joke about how long it is, but how about next year, do something about it!
Actually this is one the shortest Oscar’s we’ve seen in awhile. And somebody mentioned that the nominees should be blamed for the poor ratings because she ‘never heard of them’? What size rock do you live under??
I think people don’t watch because they don’t see their own personal favs on the list.
I’m glad this ceremony isn’t a “popularity contest.” Who cares if people don’t know the actors nominated – let’s keep the standards up and reward the craft – want “popular,” go to the Blockbuster awards.
Jon Stewart – he had some one-liners – I’d get a chucke, but nothing that was a complete belly laugh. I got tired of him right after he told everyone to “vote for your favorite Democratic.” It’s people like that, that want me to vote for a Republican. Don’t force your agenda on a captive audience.
As for the show – I completely got the yawns after Best Actress. (Thanks Marion for waking the audience up with your speech). I wanted to turn the show off after that – it was a chore -after looking at my cheat sheet – that I had to still endure Best Original Screenplay, Director, Editing, Actor, Picture, Cinematography.
My head scratcher — why is it that Spike Lee & Samuel L. are always given good seats? Should’nt, say, Dianne Weist, who has 2 oscars, be given closer seats?
It’s a shame people didn’t tune in. It was a delightful and streamline show. I get it that it was because of the crop of nominees. It shows the difference between film lovers(who tune in no matter)and movie lovers(those who tune in to see things like Titanic win). Besides my guess is lots of people used their DVR’s and that doesn’t factor in the ratings. Can we fix that by the way?
Tom,
Jon Stewart wasn’t forcing his agenda on the audience–he was making a joke about how the Academy is very liberal and how they’re going to vote Democrat no matter what.
Personally, I think Stewart’s a great host, and I thought Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton’s surprise wins and great speeches were highlights. I also thought it was classy of Stewart to bring “Once” co-song writer and winner Marketa Irglova back on stage to make a speech after the composer cut her off the first time. The show was blah overall, but there were some memorable moments, as there always are.
The Oscars should realize that if they want to continue to honor the best movies and not be a popularity contest then don’t worry about the ratings.
The problem wasn’t Jon Stewart. Nor was it the nominees. Nor was it the films released this year (in my opinion, the best year for movies since 1994). No, the problem is with you people. People that LOVED Transformers. People that thought Pirates 3 and Spiderman 3 were “pretty good”. People that think No Country is “too violent” or that complain that it doesn’t have a nice, tidy ending. People that think There Will Be Blood was “too dark”. People that don’t see foreign movies unless they are dubbed over. People that don’t know who Javier Bardem is (dude’s been nominated twice and The Sea Inside won Best Foreign Picture…WAKE UP PEOPLE!). It’s a sad state for American culture. If The Godfather came out in this sort of cultural void, no one would have watched it…and that’s sad.
I think that there really are no more “Movie Stars”. Pacino & DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson; who are they passing the baton to? I think the days of the movie star/great actor are going by the wayside. That’s part of the problem with the Oscars. You tuned in to see the big names. There really isn’t anyone who can fill those shoes.
Just because you’ve never HEARD of the winners does not mean they’re performances weren’t amazing! I did see these movies and all the actors who won ABSOLUTELY deserved to be winners. Next year lets not nominate people who deserve it and just nominate random “stars” so that people will tune in! Ridiculous! That is not what the oscars are about.
Titanic won the Oscar in 1998.
Several people pointed out the problem: the best movie nominations are movies that weren’t watched by the general masses. So why would they bother to tune in to watch a show honoring movies they haven’t watched and have no vested interest?
As matchkitjohn said, the Oscars should just stop caring about ratings if they continue to nominate movies people don’t watch.
The entire show was dull and boreing. I don’t think the writers helped the situation. I watched it to see the gowns and jewlery.
This year’s Oscars were very much ‘inside baseball,’ focused on Hollywood insiders honoring each other for films and performances not that many people saw. If next year’s nominations are of the same ilk, ratings will be even lower. At some point, they’ll probably just move the program to a cable channel and be done with it. Then film lovers could seek out the show, and movie goers could watch something else.