Oscar Ratings Down 16% Nielsen Blames Lack of Diversity
Viewership for cinema's biggest night was down 16 percent from last year and reached its lowest point since 2009, with only 36.6 million people watching the Neil Patrick Harris-hosted awards show on ABC Sunday night.
"With remarkable consistency, African-American viewers have showed up in large numbers to watch the Oscar broadcast when it featured a strong lineup of Black nominees. But Black viewers have gone missing when the core African-American presence was diminished, as it is this year," says Nielsen data.
According to Nielsen, five times in the last 10 years, the Oscar broadcast has drawn more than 40 million viewers. And in all five instances, the Black audience was solely responsible for driving that figure above 40 million. Each of those five years included multiple Black nominees in key categories, such as Forest Whitaker, Eddie Murphy, Djimon Hounsou, Will Smith and Jennifer Hudson in 2007; Denzel Washington and Quvenzhané Wallis along with Beasts of the Southern Wild and Django Unchained in 2013.
Is there evidence suggesting this? Because BET is probably the least credible thing to ever exist. As far as I'm concerned, the only used Nielson to get ratings, Nielson never said the ratings were solely due to black audiences.
