The early numbers for this year’s Oscars hosted by Jimmy Kimmel don’t look good. The overnights from the top 56 television markets are in and the Academy Awards rated 22.4 households, which translates into a 36% share of the audience watching TV on Sunday evening. Even more troubling is the anemic performance among the demographically desirable 18-49 year olds: the 89th annual Academy Awards merited a mere 12.7 rating among these advertiser friendly folks.
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By way of comparison, last year’s Oscars hosted by Chris Rock had a 23.4 rating in the same markets while the 2015 ceremony emceed by Neil Patrick Harris earned a 25.0 rating. All those results lag behind the benchmark set by Ellen DeGeneres in 2014, when she drew a household rating of 27.9.
This year’s early results are only slightly ahead of the low point of the last decade. In 2009, Jon Stewart presided over a ceremony that scored only 21.9 in the overnights.
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This year’s edition of the Oscars cracked the 30.0 rating threshold in the major markets, including New York (31.1 rating), Los Angeles and Chicago (30.5) and San Francisco (30.3).
