TV Ratings: Oscars Sink To All-Time Low

The 2020 Oscars ceremony was watched by the smallest audience the awards show has ever received, Variety reports.

23.6 million viewers tuned in on Sunday night to see “Parasite” sweep to a surprise victory. That’s a 20%, 6 million viewer drop-off from last year. The Academy’s second hostless show in a row scored a 5.3 rating among adults 18-49 in the fast national ratings, a 31% dip from 2019.

For comparison, last year’s Oscars delivered a 7.7 rating in adults 18-49 and 29.6 million viewers. That viewership figure, while up 12% from 2018, represented the second smallest audience ever for an Academy Awards telecast at the time. 2018 delivered the previous smallest viewership tally with 26.5 million viewers.

Up until the last few years, Academy Awards viewership has generally stood between 35 and 45 million people, according to Nielsen.

News of the lows in both metrics isn’t entirely surprising, as awards show numbers in general have been in decline over the past few years. For instance, the 2020 Golden Globes dipped 2% on 2019 to eight-year viewership low, while the 2019 Emmys was the lowest-rated and least-watched in the show’s history, a refrain that is becoming all too familiar when discussing award show ratings lately.

The Oscars 2020 is still the most watched awards show of the season however, beating the Grammys by just under 5 million viewers and the Globes by 5.3 million.

Meanwhile, it was announced Monday that the XFL’s debut game drew 3.3 million viewers.

ABC announced that number and added that the viewership peaked at the end of the broadcast, which is a good sign that the game kept fans interested.

Last year, the Alliance of American Football drew 2.9 million viewers for its first game. The AAF never reached anything remotely close to that again and shut down before completing its first season.