Oscars pull in 19.5 million viewers, marking best ratings in 4 years
Newsy
Viewership peaked in the final half-hour, when Ryan Gosling performed “I'm Just Ken” from “Barbie" and ”Oppenheimer" won three of the four top awards.
"Barbenheimer" brought a bump, not a boom, to Oscars ratings.
An estimated 19.5 million people watched Sunday night's 96th Academy Awards ceremony on ABC. That's the biggest number drawn by the telecast in four years.
But that upward trend comes from an all-time low during the pandemic, and is up just 4% from last year's estimated audience of 18.7 million, according to numbers released Monday by ABC.
The Academy experimented with starting this year's show an hour earlier, and for the first time in years had many nominations for huge hit movies that viewers had actually seen — "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer."
The viewership peaked in the final half-hour, when Ryan Gosling performed "I'm Just Ken" from "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" won best actor, best director and best picture.
