The 2015 Oscars scored the broadcast’s lowest US television ratings in six years, with just 36.6 million people tuning in to watch Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman triumph in four categories.
Estimates from Nielsen suggest Neil Patrick Harris’s turn as host was watched by 16% fewer viewers than tuned in to check out Ellen DeGeneres in 2014, when 42.7 million people watched the show. The last time the broadcast had a similar number of viewers was in 2009, when 39.3 million watched the ceremony presented by Hugh Jackman in which Slumdog Millionaire took best picture.
Harris’s turn received generally mixed reviews, with the Guardian’s Brian Moylan suggesting it would be remembered as “more David Letterman than Bob Hope”. A riff on Birdman in which the actor appeared on stage in his tighty whities drew laughs but an elaborate “Oscars predictions” segue and a David Oyelowo-fuelled gag about British people making everything sound better fell flat.
Social media mentions were also down from 11.2m tweets in 2014 to 5.9m this year. That was largely thanks to DeGeneres’s famous Oscars selfie, which saw the host gather together stars including Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep and Bradley Cooper for an apparently impromptu photo. However, Twitter’s unique audience for the Oscars was similar for both years, slipping just a few points from 13.9m to 13m.
The lowest Oscar audience in recent years was the 32 million who watched in 2008, when it was hosted by Jon Stewart. Since then, the show has generally been on the up, though it has still struggled to get anywhere near the 57.25 million who tuned in to watch Titanic win 11 gongs in 1998.
Harris’s stint did at least avoid any major controversies, though a series of jokes about Oscars diversity and controversial nominee American Sniper left some feeling uncomfortable. There was nothing to match Seth MacFarlane’s turn in 2013, when gags about female nudity, domestic violence and Jews in Hollywood led to complaints from US Jewish group the Anti-Defamation League.
Up to a billion people are likely to have watched at least part of the show around the world, though there are no official figures. The full ceremony is broadcast live in more than 200 countries, according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which stages the awards.
