Ratings Up for Oscars

The Oscars enjoyed a jump in ratings over last year's lowest rated Oscars ever. In spite of the increase, the show still comes in as the third lowest rated.

From the New York Times:

Ratings for the 81st Annual Academy Awards on Sunday night were up significantly over last year’s telecast, the least-watched Oscars on record. Nielsen’s preliminary estimates show an average of 36.3 million viewers tuned in to the three- hour-plus awards show on ABC, a 13 percent increase over the 32 million who watched in 2008. Oscar ratings are down considerably from an all-time high of 55 million in 1998, when “Titanic” dominated the awards.

This isn't rocket science. The show that was the all-time winner in the ratings race just happened to coincide with the year the all-time box office champ, Titanic, was in contention.

People aren't going to watch if they aren't familiar with the nominated films or the actors in them.

From CNNMoney:

...[M]any viewers are believed to have tuned in to see whether the late Heath Ledger would win Oscar gold for his turn as the Joker in the year's biggest blockbuster, "The Dark Knight."

I do think that was a factor. Viewers probably tuned in because they wanted to see Heath Ledger honored as Best Supporting Actor. He was expected to win the award and he did.

I would bet that if The Dark Knight had been nominated in other major categories, like Best Picture and Best Director, the ratings for this year's broadcast would have been much better than they were. The Dark Knight is number two on the list of all-time box office domestic grosses.

In addition to viewers tuning in to see Heath Ledger win, I think that viewers also were interested in seeing Mickey Rourke pick up his well-deserved Oscar. Of course, Rourke didn't win, but ABC owes him some thanks for the ratings boost.