Seth MacFarlane drew largest Oscars TV audience in three years

[FarCenter]

Sunday night's Oscars attracted 40.3 million American TV viewers, the highest number since 2010, broadcaster ABC has revealed.

New host Seth MacFarlane caused offence to some viewers after he opened the show with a song about actresses' breasts and joked about domestic abuse.

However, MacFarlane, who is estimated to be worth £2 billion for his cartoon creation Family Guy, was brought in by Oscars organisers to attract a younger audience, which is a target market for TV advertisers. The awards were also rebranded as "The Oscars", rather than "The 85th Academy Awards", in an attempt to appear more contemporary.

The move paid off, as there was an 11 per cent increase in the numbers of viewers aged 18 to 49 compared with 2012, and a 34 per cent rise in male viewers aged 18 to 34, according to statistics compiled by Nielsen.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/oscars/9894924/Seth-MacFarlane-drew-largest-Oscars-TV-audience-in-three-years.html

The target demographic was unlikely to be put off by MacFarlane's humor.

[JPZenger]

1. Controversy is good for ratings

Anybody remember discussing any of Billy Crystal's jokes?

[BainsBane]

4. I still remember when he came out as

Hannibal Lecter. That was great! Crystal is always the best at the Oscars.

[FarCenter]

5. There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.

If you can't be famous, be notorious.

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

[BainsBane]

2. How many stayed awake

for the whole show? 2%. Forget the controversy. The show was long and boring, worse than usual.

[Control-Z]

10. I had it recording and delayed

long enough to skip over almost all of Seth after giving him a fair chance in the beginning. I fast forwarded through some embarrassing dancers, also at the beginning. And then skipped most of the thank you speeches. It actually made for a darned good show!

(I didn't appreciate middle school boys' locker room humor when I was in middle school.)

[customerserviceguy]

12. I watched the whole thing

And since I like Family Guy and American Dad, I wasn't the slightest bit shocked or offended by anything Seth said. I hope he comes back next year!

[BainsBane]

13. without resuscitation?

[customerserviceguy]

14. Not only that

I was enjoying a few beers!

Really, I liked the show, it was a lot better than when others (Letterman, for example) hosted it. However, it could be reduced in length by taking the technical awards (sound, editing, speical effects) to the other tech awards presentation. As for the shorts and documentaries, they can be moved, too, since the vast majority of the public will never see any of them.

I remember the good old days forty years ago when short films were shown before a major motion picture, now all they do is hit you with previews from the studios and dopey ads. I guess they have to do that for business reasons, that makes the short features irrelevant to most moviegoers, unfortunately.

[BainsBane]

16. What was with all the Broadway numbers?

and odes to old musical theatrical production, not even playing anymore?

[customerserviceguy]

17. It's something MacFarlane apparently likes

Besides, it was trying to contrast the edgy humor with something overly inoffensive, that's what I took it to be. Sort of emphasizing by contrast, perhaps.

[Champion Jack]

3. Good for him, I thought he sucked

Worst oscars in a long time

[Autumn]

6. Maybe more people watched because there were so many interesting

movies?

[nyquil_man]

7. Why bother putting on all that glitz and glamor

when most of the memorable moments are during acceptance speeches?

[Squinch]

8. Fox News gets excellent ratings. Rush Limbaugh does too.

Doesn't mean that the majority of their demographic age cohort isn't put off by what they say. Thank God.

[rurallib]

9. we watched for the first time in a decade not because of McFarlane

Actually we watched despite him.
There were some really good movies and for the first time in a long time we saw a couple of them.

[Bluenorthwest]

11. This presumes that the host is the draw. I think the ratings move up when the films nominated

and the actors involved are more popular. Last year's pictures were moody and the Best Picture winner was silent. Actor nominess this year included Jennifer (really popular with 'the demographic) Lawrence and Argo had big star Ben at the helm.
Viewership for the year Avatar was the big movie and hosts were Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin was 41.62 million.

[snooper2]

15. And the most DU Oscar threads EVER!

Even the people that hate him and his act can't get enough...post reply post post POST!

That's the definition of....






WINNING!