‘Million Dollar Baby’ Oscars No Ratings Knockout
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A U.S. television audience of more than 41 million people watched the Oscar show capped by the triumph of boxing drama “Million Dollar Baby” — a respectable showing but hardly the ratings knockout ABC had hoped for, first figures showed on Monday.
The three-hour, 10 minute Oscar broadcast averaged 41.5 million viewers, down 5 percent or 2 million viewers from last year, when box-office powerhouse “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” was the big winner, according to preliminary data from Nielsen Media Research.
Sunday’s Academy Awards also registered a 3 percent decline from last year in ratings for the network’s target audience of young adults — those aged 18 to 49 — the group most coveted by advertisers.
The latest Oscar ratings might be considered lackluster in light of the intense hype surrounding the Oscar producers’ choice of provocative comedian Chris Rock to host the proceedings, one of several moves aimed at attracting a larger, younger audience.
On the other hand, Sunday night’s best-picture champion, “Million Dollar Baby,” had nowhere near the popular following that “Return of the King” brought to the Oscar ceremony last year.
Last year’s average viewer tally of 43.5 million was the largest Oscar viewership in four years.
The highest-rated Academy Awards ceremony in recent history remains the 1998 show, when blockbuster “Titanic” dominated the awards.
A record low of just 33.1 million tuned in for the 2003 ceremony, which coincided with the start of the U.S.-led military campaign to topple Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein.
The Oscars are television’s single most watched entertainment broadcast of the year.
By comparison, NBC’s Golden Globe Awards in January averaged 16.8 million viewers, the Grammy Awards show on CBS last month drew 18.8 million and ABC’s Emmy telecast last September eked out a mere 14 million.
Rock, making his first appearance as Oscar host, received mixed reviews for a performance that many critics said failed to live up to its hype.
While some critics credited Rock with raising the show’s energy level, others thought his humor fell flat. The Washington Post’s Tom Shales called Rock’s performance “strangely lame and mean-spirited” and predicted he would not be back.
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