Oscar ratings top 2021, but still low The audience increased considerably compared to the last year's ceremony, but it is still far from the figures the ceremony had in the 90s.
By Eduardo Scheffler Zawadzki Edited by Eduardo Scheffler Zawadzki
This article was translated from our Spanish edition.
It's not a secret: for years the Oscar awards ceremony has been struggling to get the desired rating . The broadcast of the ceremony, which for years achieved audiences of nearly 40 million viewers, has been in a tailspin for almost a decade, with the lowest figures in its 2021 history: 10.4 million people in 2021 (we must not forget that the format of this last installment was different due to the pandemic).
Given its reality, the Hollywood Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has sought to reinvent an event that already feels old-fashioned and stiff with a more agile format and involving the public; this year, for example, for the first time a couple of awards chosen by the viewers through Twitter were handed out and, in addition, an attempt was made to make the format of the delivery more dynamic and the presence of hosts was resumed to direct the ceremony (this year those in charge were Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes).
Preliminary reports show that, although the 2021 audience was surpassed, the audience level is still low and was not enough to reach the 18.9 million people who followed the ceremony in 2020. The total audience reported by Nielsen for this edition is 15.4 million people .
Two hours after the broadcast began, actor Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on national television after he made a joke about his shaved hair look (the actress has declared that she suffers from alopecia). The aggression of Smith, who soon received the award for Best Actor, went viral and gave the event great visibility on social networks, although this does not seem to have resulted in more people following the ceremony. In Nielsen's preliminary report it is not clear whether the event had an impact on the rating.
#OSCARFAN FAVORITE AND THE VOICE OF THE PUBLIC
Historically there has been a discrepancy between the nominated and awarded films and those that the public likes the most. Seeking greater involvement on the part of users, this year the Academy decided to establish two votes on Twitter so that the public could choose their favorites. The first category was to choose the favorite movie and among the contenders to take the statuette were Spider-Man: No Way Home, Cinderella, No time to die, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Army of the Dead, F9, Godzilla vs. . Kong and The Suicide Squad.
Users voted using the hashtags #OscarFanFavorite and #Sweepstakes in a dynamic that was active from February 14 to March 3. Army of the Dead made history by becoming the first zombie movie to win an Oscar.
The second category allowed voting for the most exciting scene using the hashtag #OscarsCheerMoments . The winner was a Flash scene in Justice League that competed against The Matrix, Dreamgirls, and The Matrix.
