Oscar ratings improve -- even without the last part of the show
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The good news: Ratings for this year's Academy Awards improved substantially over last year and are the highest for any TV show (sports excluded) in two years.
The bad news: Those improvements come over a historic low for the Oscar telecast in 2008, and Sunday's audience was still well below that of the past few years. And if the audience surged when the big awards were handed out in the show's final minutes, we don't know, because according to Nielsen, the show ended about a half-hour before it ended.
ABC says an average of 36.3 million people watched the 81st annual Oscars on Sunday, an improvement of better than 4 million people over last year's all-time low of 32 million. It's the most-watched entertainment program of the season by a wide margin (over the American Idol premiere last month) and bigger than any other entertainment program since the 2007 Oscars drew 40.17 million viewers.
The adults 18-49 rating for the Oscars also went up, rising from 10.7 in 2008 to 12.1 this year. All the other key demos improved too -- even men under 35, who many pundits presumed lost when The Dark Knight was shut out of most of the major categories (it did win two awards, for supporting actor Heath Ledger and for sound editing).
All these numbers are based on "time zone-adjusted" fast national ratings that take into account the live nationwide broadcast. What they don't take into account is the last 25 to 30 minutes of the broadcast.
Here's the deal: Nielsen marks the end time of a program as the time of the last national commercial break, which in the Oscars' case came at 11:25 p.m. ET Sunday. The show, however, didn't end until a couple minutes before midnight ET. During that last half-hour or so, the marquee awards for best actress (Kate Winslet for The Reader), actor (Sean Penn for Milk) and picture (Slumdog Millionaire), so it's not unreasonable to expect there might have been an uptick in viewers. We just don't know if that happened based on the figures we have now.
While the year-to-year numbers for the Oscars are good, this year's telecast doesn't stack up quite as well against recent history. Even with the two least-watched Oscars in history airing this decade (last year and 2003), the telecast has averaged better than 39 million viewers in this decade, a number last night's broadcast failed to reach. Sunday's awards were also only the fourth since 1988 to fall short of 40 million viewers (last year, 2006 and 2003 are the others).
The telecast, with Hugh Jackman as host and heavy on clip packages, has been a love-or-hate proposition with most reviewers. It ran about 3 hours and 30 minutes, which is about par for the course over the past decade.
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I definately landed in the hated it. It didn't have the comedy I was hoping for and felt to much like a stage show, which is not what I want from the Awards show for Motion Pictures.
Also, I hated the movie Slumdog Millionaire and felt like I got punched everytime it won something. That certainly didn't help.
I'm in the "loved it" category. I thought it was much more entertaining than in some previous years, even given the fact that host Hugh Jackman isn't known as a comedian as the hosts usually are.
If they could just cut the inevitable big song and dance number (in this case, "The musical is back!" production) that always clogs up the middle of the show, I'd have no complaints.
Hugh Jackman did a good job overall and the opening 'budget constrained/recession-oriented' musical parody with Anne Hathaway was hilarious.
I firmly believe, as most experts do, the TV ratings for the Oscars are very dependent on which films are heavily nominated. If the top four or five most nominated films didn't resonate with most movie goers, than it will a low watched event (as this one was). If more popular or mainstream films are the nominees (like in 1997 with 'Titanic'), then you get a huge viewer turnout.
I didn't see many of the major nominated films (Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, The Visitor, The Wrestler, Doubt, Frozen River, Changeling, etc.), but I still enjoyed the show.
Loved the ceremony!
Kudos to the producers and Hugh!
I thought it was great! The set was beautiful, and Hugh Jackman was a pleasure as host.
I liked the opening musical number and I also really liked how they had 5 former winners talk to/about the nominees in the acting categories -- I thought it was a cl***y and touching way to do this (sorry former Best Supporting Actors -- you weren't special enough for a standing ovation... blame Cuba Gooding Jr.).
I did not like all of the teaching involved with the way they paired the awards together -- it's fine that they had a rhyme and reason behind why they grouped the awards in such a way, but no one who was watching wanted or needed a 3 hour lesson in how to make a movie. We watch movies for the magic; if we want to know how it's done we'll go to film school.
I also was disappointed that this year's telecast did 2 things that I had read previously that they were not going to do: 1. They relied heavily on clips-packages which are boring -- especially when they are just visuals set to music and not actual clips of scenes that include the dialogue; and 2. they had vowed not to let viewers hear the clapping during the annual March of the Dead yet even though the applause was muted you could still hear it behind Queen Latifah's singing. Very cr***.
It was an intriguing idea for them to "hide" who their presenters were until the actual show but there was no one special... it was all of the same people we have seen everywhere else already. At the Oscars you are looking for really high-caliber FILM STARS and at least a handful that you rarely see or haven't seen in a while. Other than Eddie Murphy (who NEVER does stuff like that) there were no surprises. Where was Julia Roberts, who rarely does movies anymore but who has a movie coming out next month? Why did we get stuck with Alicia Keyes instead?
As for the set, for good and for bad it was cl***ic David Rockwell. The crystal curtain was stunning. The giant lanterns with the huge rope thingies hanging out of them looked cheap. Speaking of rope, there were also curtains made of rope and they looked both ugly and cheap. And the elaborate sets they arranged for the more technical awards looked like they belonged on the Tony Awards and not the Oscars.
Also, even though I loved the opening number I thought the tribute to musicals was super CHEESY.
So, as usual it was a grab-bag... some things were better while many things were unfortunately status quo.
And since I am not a fan of Slumdog Millionaire, I spent a lot of time fast-forwarding through acceptance speeches. I am so sick of hearing about that stupid movie I could scream.
And, really... is it impossible to end this show on time just once?
I have mixed reviews. I liked the opening number. Hugh Jackman was pleasantly surprising. His singing comments about how he couldnt get in to see The Reader cause the line was too long for Ironman, and why arent comic book hero movies ever nominated, was pretty good!
Hated the fact that they spent more time on The Musical with Beyonce, then they did with nominated songs. That's the reason Peter Gabriel couldnt sing the whole song?? And why only 3 songs this year?
Why, oh why, havent they asked Tina Fey to host??? Her and Steve Martin would be a HOOT! Ben Stiller would be pretty good too.
I did NOT like the "In Memoriam" montage at all. I want to not only see the clips of the dearly departed, but HEAR them too. Even though Queen sang a great song, I couldnt fully appreciate the montage. And where was Harvey Korman? Why do they always leave someone out? Last year it was Brad Renfro. Do they think we dont notice?
All in all, it was good. Not as good as years past when Billy Crystal was host, and the top prizes went to blockbuster movies. Maybe next year....
I Liked Hugh Jackman, but I missed our comedians. I was watching it and wishing for Jon Stewart to come out and run the second half.
I have to say, I enjoyed the Oscars. I did not have high hopes, I was not to crazy about Hugh hosting, but I think it turned out great. I loved they way they presented the acting awards. I also really loved it when Queen Latifa sang durring the clips of people who p***ed on. I thought Hugh did a great job and I hope he returns next year. One more thing... I have been to the Kodak and I don't like it. I have thought they should move it out of that small dump from the start, but this year was the best the Kodak has ever looked and for the first time I did not want to hit my TV at the sight of it. All around, the producers did a great job this year.
I liked the fact that the orchestra's intrusion on winners was pretty much gone. Gosh, someone who has been working behind the scenes for years finally gets an Oscar and they won't let them say, "Thank you," in their own time. This is always especially irritating when there are two people who win an award and only one gets to say something.
The other problem with the Best Picture selections and viewership is that they were adult films. One of my students complained that he had not seen any of the movies and did not know what they were about. "Frost/Nixon" was a safe one to explain to an elementary student. My students had heard of the gimmick used in Benjamin Button. I was surprised when I looked in the newspaper that "Slumdog Millionaire" was an "R" movie. For the record, I didn't care for it either. I thought "Iron Man" was the best movie I saw in 2008. It was extremely well done, well acted, had a message (if that is what a nominated movie needs), and I was totally surprised by it. It never lagged.
And why wasn't Patrick McGoohan in the memorial? His last major role was in the Best Picture, "Braveheart."
I loved loved Hugh Jackman - he was a great host! I thought the way they presented the acting awards was very touching and I hope they keep doing this. And I like that they had some presenters stay at the podium to present more than one award. All in all a great job.