The 2019 Oscar telecast, which was the first to go without a host since 1989, saw an uptick in viewers that looked particularly encouraging for ABC. For last night’s telecast went without a host once again but if ABC was hoping for more increases, they were in for a rude awakening this morning.
Despite a history-making win for Parasite and a slew of mainstream movies that a lot of moviegoers actually saw last year, last night’s telecast hit an all-time of 23.6 million viewers and a 5.3 rating in the coveted 18-49 demo. A lot of networks would kill for these numbers but it’s considerably well off from the 29.56 million viewers that watched the ceremony last year. The demo number was also below last year’s demo rating of 7.7 in the 18-49 group.
It’s hard to say why the slip happened. The telecast pretty much followed the motif of last year’s show but perhaps the key difference is that the 2019 ceremony likely got a boost from those who were curious to see if they could pull off the show without a host. I will say that the excuse of it’s the type of movies being nominated is why viewership is low can be thrown out the window. Many of the Best Picture nominees have been huge box office successes and some of them were heavily streamed on the Netflix platform so there were definitely more eyes on the movies from last year. I think at the end of the day, maybe the show does need a host and last year was more of a fluke instead o an upward trend. I personally thought the show flowed well without a host once again but having a good MC to move things along is a talent that can’t be overlooked as well.
