Oscars

The 2023 Oscars were watched by about 18.7M people, which still makes it among the least-watched ceremonies ever.

The most-watched Oscars telecast in history, which brought in about 57M viewers, was the year Titanic was nominated in 1998. That was also the year that Black Panther, which was a historic film that came in at No. It was the first time in a long time any of the nods for the top prizes reflected films that worldwide audiences are actually watching. 2020’s 23.6M was nothing to bat an eye at when just a few years earlier the viewership had been nearly double. That’s up about 5 million compared with last year, which is a bit of a surprise considering how buzzy the slap was. The 95th annual ceremony brought in 18.7 million viewers, a 12% increase from last year when the telecast captured 16.6M viewers.

ABC executives and much of Hollywood can breathe a sigh of relief. Viewership totals for ABC's telecast of the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday night rose for ...

And as ratings have slumped, ABC has increased the number of ads it places in the Oscars telecast. (When “The Last of Us” went head-to-head against the Super Bowl last month, network executives released that week’s episode on a Friday on HBO Max; the network did not bother deploying that get-out-in-front-of-it strategy for the Oscars.) HBO said on Monday that the finale drew a season high of 8.2 million viewers. The academy reported that the 2022 Oscars generated $137.1 million, almost all of it coming from Disney, ABC’s parent company, for the domestic and international licensing rights. ABC said on Friday that it had sold out its Oscars inventory; Pfizer, Rolex and Verizon were the lead sponsors. And last month the Super Bowl drew 113 million viewers, the second-highest viewership total in the game’s history. The red carpet preshow brings in roughly $16 million annually. The evening had plenty of tears, with all four acting winners (Brendan Fraser, Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis) giving emotionally charged speeches. And the best picture winner, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” generated $104 million in ticket sales. Reviews were mixed, with some critics praising the show’s traditional look and feel, and others being turned off by what Even so, it was the third-least-watched Oscars on record. Two films up for best picture grossed more than $1 billion at the box office — “Top Gun: Maverick” collected $1.5 billion, and “Avatar: The Way of Water” took in $2.3 billion. Last year’s Oscars attracted 16.6 million, with viewership

After breathing a sigh of relief that the night went smoothly, our critics examine the acting wins as well as the track records of studios and Netflix.

[Apple won best picture](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/movies/oscars-winner-list.html) last year with “CODA,” but Apple doesn’t feel like a threat (to anything, really), unlike Netflix, which has consistently tried to bend the industry to its will. [Brendan Fraser](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/01/movies/brendan-fraser-oscar-the-whale.html) (best actor) and [Ke Huy Quan](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/05/movies/ke-huy-quan-everything-everywhere.html) (best supporting actor) were comeback kids, each one returning to stardom after years away. The industry employs and exploits so many people, and every year celebrates a handful of those and the craft and creativity that make this business special. My movie life and my thinking about what it all means onscreen and off, as well as my cranky Oscar post-mortems, just won’t be the same without you. I certainly do, but this was my last Oscars as a film critic for The Times. Yeoh and [Jamie Lee Curtis](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/movies/jamie-lee-curtis-halloween.html) (supporting actress) were genre veterans and longtime stars basking in overdue glory. Still no best picture for that streamer, and another one for A24 (which gave us “Moonlight” a few years back). [95th annual Academy Awards](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/arts/oscars-everything-everywhere-all-at-once.html), with the familiar dazzling smiles and designer threads, the showy glad-handing and flowing tears. [Michelle Yeoh](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/12/movies/michelle-yeoh-oscars-best-actress.html), the academy’s first Asian best actress winner, was the evening’s main front-row attraction. Yet everyone who faithfully (hate) watches the Oscars knows that there’s always a lot going on other than demigods doling out awards to one another or smiling for the hoi polloi at home. A great many people love this movie to the point of being obnoxious about it on social media, and its vibe of earnest, energetic, slightly cloying emotional openness was the evening’s dominant vibe. Midway through I realized that, mostly, I felt somehow reassured that life — and the movies — felt almost normal again, even with those weird Paxlovid ads and the honorable sight of Jessica Chastain briefly wearing a face mask.

Early, time zone-adjusted Oscar ratings showed the Academy Awards audience reached 18.7 million total viewers, earning at 4.0 rating in the key demo.

The last time the Oscars scored more than 30 million viewers was 2017 (33 million, when “Moonlight” won) and the last time it crossed the 20 million threshold was the pre-pandemic 2020 show (23.6 million, the year “Parasite” was victorious). The record for an Oscars telecast remains the landmark 1998 entry, where an average of 55.3 million viewers watched “Titanic” win best picture. After additional time-shifted viewing in the days that followed, the telecast wound up pulling 17.6 million viewers, making it the most-watched non-sports program of last year. This year’s telecast faced tough competition from HBO’s season finale of breakout smash “The Last of Us” — whose star, Pedro Pascal, was ironically a presenter on the kudocast. Final “live + same day” Nielsen data for the 95th Oscars will be available Tuesday. And according to those time-zone-adjusted fast-national numbers from Nielsen, it bested the previous year’s 3.8 rating by 5% in key adults 18-49, earning a 4.0 in the demo.

Roughly 18.7m US viewers tune in, making Sunday the third-least watched Oscars since tracking began.

The scaled-back ceremony in 2021 was the least-watched Oscars of all time. The Oscars were viewed by 10.4 million people in 2021 and 16.6 million in 2022. The 95th Academy Awards were watched by an average of 18.7 million people in the US, a 12% increase over 2022, overnight figures show.

Viewership is up almost 80% from a 2021 low, but the Academy Awards remain a long way off from attracting the audience they used to.

The 2023 Grammy Awards also had a notable ratings boost, attracting 12.5 million viewers on average, compared to 9.6 million last year, while ratings for this year’s [Golden Globes](https://variety.com/vip/2022-emmys-ratings-analysis-1235371728/) cratered 26% from 2022 and September’s primetime [Emmy Awards](https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/golden-globes-ratings-2023-nbc-1235482220/) had its smallest audience ever. [ slap of Chris Rock](https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2023/03/12/how-the-2023-oscars-addressed-will-smiths-chris-rock-slap-one-year-later/?sh=708f24547719) at the 2022 event, which sparked a social media firestorm and a boost in ratings during the latter portion of last year’s broadcast. But Everything Everywhere All At Once [ruled the night, winning](https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2023/03/12/academy-awards-2023-everything-everywhere-all-at-once-dominates-ceremony/?sh=14d33cbdb1d0) seven of the 11 awards it was nominated for, including the top honor of the night: best picture. [How The 2023 Oscars Addressed Will Smith’s Chris Rock Slap—One Year Later](https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2023/03/12/how-the-2023-oscars-addressed-will-smiths-chris-rock-slap-one-year-later/?sh=708f24547719) (Forbes) [Academy Awards 2023: ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ Dominates Oscars](https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2023/03/12/academy-awards-2023-everything-everywhere-all-at-once-dominates-ceremony/?sh=14d33cbdb1d0) (Forbes) [Defying Recent Award Show Trends, Grammys Audience Grows By 30%](https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2023/02/07/defying-recent-award-show-trends-grammys-audience-grows-by-30/?sh=33b7c4db698d) (Forbes) [starting to turn around](https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2023/02/07/defying-recent-award-show-trends-grammys-audience-grows-by-30/?sh=33b7c4db698d). [ multiple](https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/2023-oscar-ratings-academy-awards-audience-1235550070/) [ reports](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/business/oscars-viewers-ratings.html), citing Nielsen data, but the 18.7 million people that watched this year’s ceremony on average is still woefully low by the program’s historical standards.

The Academy Awards telecast on Sunday attracted roughly 18.7 million U.S. television viewers to the film industry's highest honors, according to data ...

ABC said Sunday's awards were the subject of 27.4 million interactions on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Viewership of many awards ceremonies has dropped in recent years as audiences have ditched traditional television for streaming and social media. Multiverse adventure "Everything Everywhere All at Once" took home best picture and [dominated the awards.](/lifestyle/champagne-carpet-crisis-team-ready-oscars-celebration-sunday-2023-03-12/) LOS ANGELES, March 13 (Reuters) - The Academy Awards telecast on Sunday attracted roughly 18.7 million U.S. The Oscars also ranked as the No. Register for free to Reuters and know the full story