The 2022 Oscars drew more viewers than last year’s record-low ceremony, but still fell well below prior years as award shows struggle to attract primetime attention.
The nearly four-hour telecast drew 15.36 million viewers according to time-zone-adjusted fast national numbers from Nielsen, Variety reported on Monday. The audience figures show a 56% improvement over the 2021 ceremony, which drew an all-time low of 10.4 million viewers and prompted the Academy and ABC to shake up the program in an attempt to woo more viewers.
The Academy hired hosts for the first time since Jimmy Kimmel in 2018 (that ceremony drew 26.6 million viewers): the all-female trio of Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall. Producers also controversially cut eight technical categories from the telecast (though it featured clips of each during the ceremony) and introduced fan voting for top film and movie moment via Twitter.
Despite the changes, the 2022 Oscars were the second least viewed of all time. Before last year, the ceremony had never dipped below 20 million viewers. The 2020 ceremony, which aired on 9 February, a more typical date for the program, averaged 23.6 million viewers. The 2019 Oscars, the first year in decades the show aired without a host, drew 29.6 million viewers.
The most talked-about moment of the evening, when best actor winner Will Smith slapped presenter Chris Rock over a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, arrived in the final hour of the three-hour, 40-minute program. The moment generated intense response on social media, but came after the peak of Oscar viewership, which according to THR and analytics company Samba TV was about an hour earlier.
The night’s other big winners included Coda, which was named best picture, and Jessica Chastain, who won best actress for The Eyes of Tammy Faye.
