About an hour into the Oscars, I realized that despite the terrible opening, I didn’t miss having an Oscar host. The first five minutes of the Academy Awards were the only time, during the whole night, that I was like “here’s where a host was needed.” I loathed the Queen performance and the fact that they got to “open” the show, but that being said, it seemed to be pretty popular in the room, and people were rocking out. My guess is that there were probably a significant number of people who tuned in just to hate-watch, or to see how the Hostless Oscars would fail. And those numbers count! The ratings are in, and the Academy grew their audience.

The ratings for the 2019 Oscars telecast are up slightly from last year. In the time zone adjusted fast national ratings, the awards show drew a 7.7 rating in adults 18-49 and 29.6 million viewers on Sunday. That is up from a 6.8 rating and 26.5 million in 2018. That is an increase of approximately 12% in total viewers and 13% in the key demo. And while that is up from last year’s historic low, this year was the second smallest audience ever for an Academy Awards telecast.

The awards show, which went without a host this year, drew a 20.6 rating in metered market households, up approximately 6% from the 18.9 last year’s telecast drew. The 2018 Oscars’ household rating was down approximately 16% from the 22.5 rating drawn by the telecast in 2017. The 2018 Oscars initially drew a 6.4 rating in adults 18-49 and 24.4 million viewers before rising to a 6.8 rating and 26.5 million. That final number is the lowest viewership for an Oscars telecast in the show’s history.

[From Variety]

I think this year’s Oscar producer Donna Gigliotti deserves a fair amount of credit, legitimately. She ran a tight ship, she ensured that everything kept moving, and while the Oscars went over three hours (they promised to try not to), it wasn’t by much and there honestly wasn’t too much excess, “this should have been cut” stuff.

All that being said, I’d be willing to bet that people were tuning in because this year really was competitive in so many categories, and because several of the nominated films were huge financial successes, like A Star Is Born, Black Panther and Bohemian Rhapsody. It always helps the Oscar ratings when nominated films have actually been seen by the general public. That wasn’t the case last year, the lowest rated year in Oscar history, when The Shape of Water and Three Billboards were picking up so many Oscars.

Photos courtesy of WENN.