Monica Almeida/The New York Times The Academy Awards telecast on Sunday night drew its largest audience in five years. Above, “The Hurt Locker” won for best picture. Continuing a trend of super-sized TV ratings for big-ticket events, the Academy Awards drew an average audience of 41.3 million viewers Sunday night, the award show’s best performance in five years.
ABC said that the awards show, which was co-hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, delivered a 13.1 rating among 18- to 49-year-olds.
The 41.3 million viewer figure is Oscar’s best since 2005, when “Million Dollar Baby” won the Best Picture and 42.2 million people watched. This year represents the second year of ratings growth for the Oscars, which saw record low viewership in 2008, when an average of 31.8 million people watched. The show rebounded a bit in 2009 when 37 million tuned in.
According to Variety, viewership for the awards in New York “was lower than last year (roughly 29.4 household rating vs. 34.1),” a consequence of the Cablevision/ABC dispute that ended about 14 minutes into the telecast. Normally New York is the No. 1 market for the Oscars, but this year Chicago was No. 1.
A total of 70 million people tuned in for at least a few minutes of the show, according to Nielsen.
A daily updated summary of the week in television by The New York Times.
The latest on the arts, coverage of live events, critical reviews, multimedia extravaganzas and much more.
