'Oscars Ratings Down 10 Percent with 37.6 Million Viewers'

The Gold Derby Website runs the numbers:

In the fast national numbers, this year’s Academy Awards telecast earned a household rating of 24.6 rating and a 37 share in households. Overall, 37.6 million viewers watched this year’s kudoscast.

That marks a 10% drop from last year’s Oscars which had a 26.5 rating and a 40 share. Those figures translated into 41.7 million people tuning in to see “The Hurt Locker” win six Oscars, including Best Picture, while “Avatar” took home only three technical Academy Awards.

And yet, as Roger L. Simon notes, “Ironically, this snore fest came in the midst of a pretty good year for movies:”

There were at least three excellent films: The King’s Speech, The Social Network and Toy Story 3. Although I cast my Academy ballot for The KS, good as that is, I should really have voted for Toy Story 3. Taken as a trilogy, The Toy Story movies are for the ages, masterpieces of a new form of animation. Pixar is the ONLY move studio functioning the way the studios once functioned in the glory days, producing film after excellent film with their unique stamp on them. Is it because they are out of Hollywood? Because of Steve Jobs (or John Lasseter)? Who knows, but they’re doing it.

So what can be done to restore the luster of the Academy Awards? It will never return to the days of Bob Hope hosting it, simply because the film industry and all of its class and respect for the audience is gone. But John Nolte of Big Hollywood offers “Ten Easy Steps to a Watchable Oscar Telecast.”

Number Nine might be the easiest and quickest solution, and simultaneously, the most effective.

Related: And speaking of which, “Could Billy Crystal host the Academy Awards again? It’s a possibility.”