Oscar Ratings A Dud

Early Nielsen Reports Sunday's Viewership Could Be Lowest Ever

(AP)  The Oscars are a ratings dud. Nielsen Media Research says preliminary ratings for the 80th annual Academy Awards telecast are 14 percent lower than the least-watched ceremony ever.

Nielsen said Monday that overnight ratings are also 21 percent lower than last year, when "The Departed" was named best picture.

The least-watched Oscars ceremony ever was in 2003, when there were 33 million viewers.

Nielsen has no estimate yet on how many people watched Sunday night, but based on ratings from the nation's biggest markets, the Oscars will be hard-pressed to avoid an ignominious record.

The show had a 21.9 rating and 33 share.

[dylanxxv]

Who cares...It''s a self serving show for them to pat each other on the back while they get thousands of dollars worth of free stuff that us second rate peons have to pay big bucks for...

[keithle1]

Maybe they just have to be cruel & hard. Limit it to the major categories. Those are what viewers care about. The rest is for movie industry people & their families. Maybe hardcore film buffs.

The public don''t care what a cinematographer has to say about the Oscar he''s won. Unless there is martial arts in the foreign language film, most Americans don''t want to read subtitles. Try to make it two hours instead of four. Make it a pleasure to watch instead of a test of endurance.

I have a funny feeling that next year''s ceremony will be EXACTLY like this year''s.

[keithle1]

"The lines they give participants to read are excruciating - and most of them look embarrassed to be reading them."

You got that right, oleander8.

It makes my toes curl. Especially when they flub their line like poor old Helen Mirren did. Why don''t they just let them ad lib something or heck, let them get right to the point? Anything to move the proceedings along. The cutesy scripted banter between a male & female presenter makes me wanna puke. Ugh.

If this doesn''t motivate the Academy Awards
powers-that-be to chuck it all & start fresh then nothing will.

I wonder how many female viewers tuned out after the Red Carpet pre-Oscars show?

[kevzgrl]

rafterman1, you are absolutely right. If the Oscar went to the movie that had the best story, characters and actors, the best reviews and word of mouth, it would have been Juno hands down. I have gone to see it twice, and when it comes out on DVD I will buy it and watch it again and again - it was THAT good. I could count the number of movies I am willing to watch repeatedly on one hand, and have a finger or two left over. Juno was simply amazing - who wants to watch an awards show where the results are pretty much forgone - it will go to a violent drama, not a comedy that had heart and soul to spare.

[bizzzz-2009]

That''s because movies are an escape anymore, they are an indoctrination process.
Keep it up Hollywood. I''m sure FORCING us to watch your ideological dribble and relentless violence is probably something you like to have happen. The fact of the matter is, we don''t have to. The reason we don''t choose to is that, as an industry, Hollywood has become a cheap piece of ***.

[westjime]

Who cares? Big deal? Amazing.. I found brintey spears had a personal account on MeetRich.com. It is a site for celebrities and millionaires to mingle. It''s said Charlie Sheen has found his love there last May.

[oleander8]

The lines they give participants to read are excruciating - and most of them look embarrassed to be reading them.

[samthetvcat]

PS I watch every year, I don''t know why - pretty dresses, some light-hearted comedy, some stars, some music . . . haven''t seen any of the movies except for Norbit, but whatever.

Can''t wait for Amazing Race to come back . . .

[samthetvcat]

What did you all think of Owen Wilson showing up? I''m so used to seeing him all smiley and jokey but now we know that was just a small part of who he is. I hope he is doing ok . . . Owen, we''re rooting for you!

[jerkeedoodle]

Hmmm,maybe a sign of people in this country getting smarter?Naw!

[olebd]

With all that''s going on in the world and with the economy, worrying about paying the bills paycheck to paycheck, the last thing I want to do is watch some fantasyland egomainiacs receive yet more awards for doing their job and getting paid for it very well.

[Syndicate]

Its all fixed. None of these awards are given to people with talent. Its who will make the most money. Glad to see people waking up and tuning out. Its kinda like that documentry on movie ratings. They rated it NC-17 to keep people from watching it. NO ***. No foul langauge. No Violance. Just an expose on the movie industrie. NC-17.

[stevenvideo]

The million dollar question is why would anyone in America with half a brain even care about these phony overpaid untalented actors? Most of them think they are better then everyone else on the plant and they are so fake and so phony I pay them no attenion, but this comment. I even live in Hollywood, CA and ignore the whole fake hype.

[keithle1]

Oscars need a radical makeover. Try something that hasn''t been done before. A different format. ANYTHING. They show the same old movie clips in montages. Why do they waste time showing us footage of past Best Actor winners. "Look there''s Robert De Niro! With a beard! Go figure!"

Do we have to hear the Oscar-nominated songs? Can''t they just play snippets of them when it''s time to announce the winner?

It would have been fun to see Travolta land on his butt when he was finished with his dancing. Almost slipped on something.

They only went 20 minutes over the alloted time. But still it seems like FOREVER when it''s on. All of the corny things they make the presenters say.

I thought Nicole Kidman looked pretty good. Cameron Diaz has a huge mouth.

[puzzler125]

While Jon Stewart tends to be most popular with intellectuals and/or college students and a younger population what I think the Academy Awards needs as a host is Billy Crystal or another COMEDIAN of his calibre. Chris Rock was pretty funny, David Letterman was a so-so host of the A. Awards, and I say bring back Billy. Stewart did do a better job than the first time. Whoopi was pretty good and Steve Martin would be great!

[gostox]

Bottom Line.....The Oscars are tooo long. Who wants to stick around for FOUR hours?!! The solution is to shorten the Oscars to TWO hours or else fewer and fewer people will watch the Oscarsevery year. Easier to just read the results the next day the sit around for hours and hours and hours.......

[pupeta-2009]

Right now it''s kind of hard to get people to watch an interesting intelligently made movie, such as "no country for old men" or "there will be blood" amongst others. We have a country with the largest population of morons who cannot go beyond eating, breathing and shi....ing and they do this because the body tells them to because if they could find a way to avoid doing these functions they would. They barely read and write and forget thinking or developing a mental capacity for analisis, that is too hard.

[brianp55]

For me, the Oscars have undergone exactly the same evolution as pro football. During the 70s and early 80s I would watch Monday Night Football each week, religously. It has been at least twenty years since I''ve had sufficient interest to sit through a game. As with football, the Hollywood personalities have changed and they are far more amorphous and far less interseting. I care nothing about these performers or a vast majority of the films they are associated with.

[ssm9451]

Glad that Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar!! He is awesome in "There Will Be Blood."

[seafang]

Well I watched my local Korean News Network station. No I can''t understand a word of Korean but it beats watching the oscars hands down.

Well in the future, all these movies will be made by programmers out of ones and zeroes. Come to think of it, they are already made out of zeroes.

The antics of those depraved people in Hollywood are a crashing bore, and they have all become know it all politicians and environmentalists anyway.

Yes I think I''ll study Korean.