The Academy Awards actually saw an uptick in audience numbers Sunday night, for the first time in almost a decade, even without a host.
Deadline reports that the Oscars broadcast earned 29.6 million viewers, gaining 3.1 million viewers over the 2018 broadcast, making Sunday night’s show the second least-watched Oscars broadcast in history after last year.
“Up 12% in viewers and 13% in the key demo over the 2018 Jimmy Kimmel fronted show, the 2019 Oscars are the most watched non-sports show on all of TV since the 32.9 million who tuned in for the 2017 Oscars,” Deadline said Monday morning.
That’s good news for Oscars advertisers, who were so unsure of whether the Oscars would draw an audience that they demanded money-back guarantees for ads placed during Sunday night’s show. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences appeared to begrudgingly agree to the deal, given that the audience for Sunday night’s program was unpredictable, particularly without a big-name draw on the marquee.
But, it turns out, people seemed to like the hostless show, which started giving out awards almost immediately, without a 15-minute lecture from a late-night talk show host. The show also ran smoothly, and without lifetime achievement awards, an in-show explanation of the voting process, or a lofty speech from the Academy president, was able to shave around 30 minutes off 2018’s running time (though the broadcast still easily topped three hours).
Deadline and other Hollywood outlets suggest that the Oscars broadcast may have drawn more viewers because of its more accessible nominees, including comic-book blockbuster “Black Panther,” and a promised performance by Lady Gaga that appeared to deliver. But viewers may have also tuned in to see if the show’s year of public troubles affected the broadcast itself — in other words, they may have flipped over to the Oscars to watch a car wreck happen in real time.
Over the past 12 months, the Academy has struggled with how to bring viewers back to the annual awards show, which has seen double-digit declines in numbers over the past half-decade. They tried to recruit a snappier host in the form of Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson, but couldn’t compete with Johnson’s intense filming schedule, then tried to reel in comedian Kevin Hart. Twitter outrage took Hart off the agenda, and even though the Academy begged for his return, he refused, spending Oscars night working out at home, according to his posts on Instagram.
The Oscars tried to scale back the number of on-air categories, putting awards for cinematography, editing, and sound editing during commercial breaks, but reversed that decision after Hollywood became outraged. Instead, the broadcast dropped it’s annual “lifetime achievement” awards, shaving around 20 minutes off the running time.
Fewer long-winded speeches also meant fewer opportunities for political pontificating. Without an opening monologue, there were no direct attacks on anyone’s ideology for hours, until Spike Lee made a lukewarm plea to voters to “do the right thing” in the 2020 presidential election, and Javier Bardem made a vague reference to a “border” and a “wall.”