Movie fans point out major issue with 2024 Oscars viewership

The 2024 Oscars enjoyed a ratings bump thanks, in part, to Barbenheimer fever – but movie fans have pointed out a major issue with the 96th Academy Awards’ viewership.

Oppenheimer won big at the Oscars, with Christopher Nolan bagging his first-ever Best Director accolade. Although the movie’s pink-hued counterpart, Barbie, didn’t bag too many of those gold statuettes, Ryan Gosling’s ‘I’m Just Ken’ performance stole the show.

Awards aside, there were plenty of celebrity moments to unpack at the 2024 ceremony, from  Emma Stone’s response to Jimmy Kimmel’s questionable jokes to a conspiracy theory that John Cena’s naked appearance was a “humiliation ritual.”

Now that the Academy Awards has been and gone for another year, the viewership figure has been released – but it’s not as favorable as you might think. 

Movie fans point out major issue with 2024 Oscars viewership

The numbers are in – 19.5 million viewers tuned in to the 2024 Oscars on Sunday night (March 10). While this is up 4% from 2023 and the highest in four years, a number of movie fans have pointed out that the Academy Awards used to draw in ratings of 40 million or more. 

Viewership figures have been on the decline in recent years, never slipping below 30 million until 2018. When Titanic won big at the Oscars in 1998, the ABC-broadcasted ceremony saw a record-high 55 million people tuning in. 

The last time the Academy Awards hit 40 million was back in 2014, and since then it’s been dropping steadily. So while this year’s turnout was an improvement, it’s far from drawing in the audiences it once did. 

In response to the 2024 Oscars’ viewership, one person wrote on X: “Not long ago it was 40 million viewers. I wonder how they lost 50% of their audience?” “They’ve lost over half the viewers in the past few years, but nice spin,” said another, while a third added, “Circling the drain, from 43M to 19M.”

Still, there was an increase from last year’s estimated audience of 18.7 million, and a significant jump from the pandemic-affected ceremony, which reached a record low of 9.85 million. Contributing factors include starting the event an hour earlier, and Oppenheimer and Barbie sparking interest. 

As for why the Academy Awards ratings aren’t what they used to be, AP’s Andrew Dalton wrote: “The movies and their makers aren’t entirely to blame. The generational shift to streaming and other video forms has gutted broadcast television viewership, and few live events other than the Super Bowl draw the sort of audiences they once did.”

You can check out all of the Oscars 2024 winners here, as well as the movie that’s won the most Oscars and where to stream all of this year’s nominations. If you’re looking for something fresh to watch, here are all of the new movies hitting streaming this month.