The Audience Of The Oscars In Free Fall

is a vertiginous drop experienced by the audience of the Oscars ceremony this year. With only 9.85 million viewers in the United States, it fell by more than 58% compared to the previous year and obtained its lowest score ever, according to figures released by the ABC channel, which broadcast the ceremony.

At the start of 2020, before the pandemic that rocked Hollywood and the film industry, the Oscar ceremony drew 23.6 million American spectators, which was already at the time the worst audience score recorded by the ‘event. This very bad result was expected by the experts and is in line with the half-mast figures achieved this season by other film awards, such as the Golden Globes.

With cinemas having been closed for much of 2020 and studios having pushed back big productions, this year’s Oscar nominees were clearly unfamiliar with some of the audience, like the big winner of the evening, “Nomadland”, an independent film with a modest budget and with a large part of amateur actors playing their own roles.

Several failures noted by experts

This drop in audience for the Oscars has been observed regularly in recent years. In 2014 again, the gala evening attracted more than 43 million spectators in front of the small screen. Among the failures noted this year by many experts, the absence of Anthony Hopkins, crowned best actor for “The Father”. However, exceptionally, the organizers had changed the order of presentation of the statuettes, which traditionally ends with the best feature film, and ends with the Oscar for best actor.

“At 83, I never expected to receive this award, really not,” apologized from Wales Anthony Hopkins in a video posted to Instagram. He also paid tribute to the memory of Chadwick Boseman, who died last year of cancer after filming his latest film “The Blues of Ma Rainey”. The star was considered the big favorite in the category of best actor.