Sunday night's Academy Awards broadcast was one of the least-watched Oscars in history.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show averaged 32.9 million viewers, the lowest figure since the dismal 2008 show that pulled an Oscars-low of 31.8 million viewers.
Sunday's broadcast on ABC was marred by a mix-up as to who won Best Picture. Faye Dunaway opened the envelope and revealed that "La La Land" had won, but moments later it was announced that a mistake had been made and the wrong envelope was opened. In reality, "Moonlight" actually won.
According to the Los Angeles Times, however, the show's length of nearly four hours meant that the Best Picture snafu happened after Nielsen had already measured the audience numbers, so it did not count toward the overall figure.
Here are the audience numbers for the Oscars since 2000, according to The Hollywood Reporter:
- 2000: 46.5 million
- 2001: 42.9 million
- 2002: 40.5 million
- 2003: 33.0 million
- 2004: 43.6 million
- 2005: 42.2 million
- 2006: 38.6 million
- 2007: 39.9 million
- 2008: 31.8 million
- 2009: 36.9 million
- 2010: 41.6 million
- 2011: 37.9 million
- 2012: 39.5 million
- 2013: 40.4 million
- 2014: 43.7 million
- 2015: 37.3 million
- 2016: 34.3 million
- 2017: 32.9 million
Variety reports that New York City (31.1 rating), San Diego (30.7 rating), Los Angeles (30.5 rating), Chicago (30.5 rating), and San Francisco (30.3) were the largest markets for Sunday night's broadcast on ABC.
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