Ratings: 2016 Oscars has lowest numbers in years

While ABC has a lot to celebrate when it comes to winning the ratings title Sunday by a huge margin, you still have to wonder what caused the Oscars to fall so hard in the ratings.

Based on some early numbers (more could be released latest), the Chris Rock-hosted show on Sunday drew the lowest overall ratings that it has seen in many years. It had a 9.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic and almost 32 million viewers, but compare that to the show hosted by Neil Patrick Harris last year, which drew 37 million viewers and an 11.0 rating in the demo. Those were at the time the lowest number for the show in over five years.

The first issue that the Oscars had this year is the same one they often have: Movies that are not commercially well-known nominated for Best Picture. Rock’s segment at the Compton movie theater proved that many everyday people have no idea that many of these movies even exist; perhaps if “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” or another big-budget movie had made it in there, it would have helped a little bit. Ratings have shown over the years that popular movies will convince more viewers to watch the Oscars themselves.

As for the other issue, we imagine that the #OscarsSoWhite controversy played at least some role, at least in that there may have been many minority groups out there who were just not interested in watching a show, even with Rock as host, where there were not any movies nominated that spoke to them on some level. Ultimately, though, it’s hard to say. This could also just be a case where people are getting tired of awards-shows in general.