Oscars ratings plummet to record low, shedding more than half its viewers in one year

The Oscars were always going to be a tough sell in a year where viewers didn’t get to see many movies – but this year’s ratings are truly shocking.

This year’s Oscars ceremony was the least-watched to date – by an enormous margin.

Ratings for the Academy Awards have been steadily decreasing in recent years, but the US viewership for yesterday’s ceremony – an average of just 9.85 million viewers – represents the sharpest drop-off to date.

It’s a 58.3 per cent decline from the 2020 ceremony, which saw 23.6 million viewers tune in across the US. That had been the show’s lowest viewership to that date, until yesterday’s ceremony blew that unwanted record out of the water:

Oscars viewership through the years

2014: 43.7 million
2015: 37.3 million
2016: 34.4 million
2017: 32.9 million
2018: 26.5 million
2019: 29.6 million
2020: 23.6 million
2021: 9.8 million

— Morning Brew ☕️ (@MorningBrew) April 26, 2021

The Oscars faced an uphill battle drawing viewer interest, after a year in which many cinemas across America and the world remained closed, limiting access to the nominated films.

This year’s biggest winner Nomadland, which picked up awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress, is the lowest-grossing Best Picture winner in decades.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, the film has so far grossed just $US2.5 to $US3 million at the US box office (viewers in Australia can catch it on Foxtel from this Friday).

Here in Australia, neither Seven’s live coverage of the Oscars nor its 9:30pm prime time replay of the ceremony rated within the day’s top 20 programs.

Nomadland star Frances McDormand and director Chloe Zhao took out several of the night’s big awards. Picture: Chris Pizzello / POOL / AFP

Meanwhile, one key behind the scenes player has explained the bizarre ending to this year’s ceremony, which saw the Best Picture award bumped to an earlier position so that Best Actor could be awarded last. Most assumed this was because late actor Chadwick Boseman would win, ending the ceremony with a moving tribute – but the gong went to absent actor Anthony Hopkins, meaning the whole show finished with presenter Joaquin Phoenix quickly accepting the award on his behalf.

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Not even Glenn Close twerking could draw viewers to this year’s ceremony.

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“It was not meant to end on somebody who was not present,” executive VP of unscripted and alternative entertainment at Walt Disney Television Rob Mills said in a new interview with Variety. “It was a calculated risk.”

Still, Mills feels the unexpected Oscars ending “paid off, because everybody was talking about it”.

That may be so, but it’s not all positive feedback: News.com.au’s Wenlei Ma said this year’s Oscars “couldn’t have failed harder if they tried.”

“This stuff-up belongs purely to (Oscars producer) Steven Soderbergh and his gang, and their hubris.

“Of course, if it had turned out differently, we probably would be applauding them for their genius but it was never, ever a certainty, and that’s the point.

“They should’ve factored in that Boseman might have lost to Hopkins. Yes, Boseman had won almost every award in the lead-up to the Oscars. Except the BAFTAs, who bestowed the honour to Hopkins. That BAFTAs win for Hopkins should’ve alerted the producers that The Father was a late-breaking movie in a very long awards season.”

One bright spot in the Oscars stuff-up? It proves once and for all that the ceremony producers aren’t tipped off to the winners beforehand.