Nobody Watched The Oscars This Year

Poor Leo. He finally wins an Oscar, and nobody gives enough of a shit to turn on their TV and watch it happen. Leo is Bad Luck Brian.

I watched the Oscars in a room full of people, and I guess I just figured we weren’t the only group of 15-20 people willing to risk all the muscles in their bodies going corpse from watching that boring show. But it sounds like we’re the only ones who took that risk.

According to Deadline, an average of 34.3 million people watched the 88th Academy Awards on Sunday night. Now, 34.3 million seems like a lot, but it’s not when it comes to Oscars watchers. Deadline says the numbers from this year’s show marked an 8-year low in viewership and barely beat out the lowest-rated ceremony ever, the 80th Academy Awards. To put it into perspective, nearly 4 million people chose to watch an airing of Last Vegas instead. This year’s Oscars currently holds the distinction of being the third-lowest rated broadcast since they started keeping track of that sort of thing. So basically, Chris Rock’s second time hosting didn’t suck as as much as Jon Stewart’s (2008) and Hugh Jackman’s (2009), but it came pretty close. That sound you just heard was Jada Pinkett Smith cackling something about karma.

Speaking of, Variety says the Oscars boycott was only a small part of the reason for the decline in viewership. They’re also pointing their “This is YOUR fault” finger at Chris Rock for not promoting the show enough, the Best Picture nominees for not being blockbusters, and youngins for not wanting to watch.

In case you were wondering what the most-watched Oscars were, that would be the 70th Academy Awards, aka the year Titanic won everything. An average of 57.25 million people watched that show. It’s pretty obvious what needs to happen if they want more people to watch the Oscars next year. Just get James Cameron to make a sequel to Titanic (Titanic 2: The Ship Returns) starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, get Celine Dion to record the theme (“My Heart Continues To Go On“), and bring back Billy Crystal. There, problem solved!

Pic: Splash