online news sources

Los Angeles, CA (Monday, March 6, 2006) -- Warning: Films about racial conflict, gay cowboys, Israeli assassins and effete New York intellectuals may be hazardous to your Oscar ratings, Nielsen Media Research figures revealed on Monday.

Sunday's Academy Awards telecast averaged 38.8 million viewers, down nearly 8 per cent from last year, bearing out predictions that a relative lack of star power and the serious, art-house subject matter of Oscar-nominated films such as Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Munich and Capote would dampen interest in this year's show.

Meanwhile, critics debated whether political satirist Jon Stewart was a flop or a hit as a first-time Oscar host. Those cheering his performance, including the Los Angeles Times and TV's movie-review duo Ebert and Roeper, said he earned himself a place as permanent emcee.

The 3 1/2-hour ceremony, capped by the surprise triumph of racial drama Crash over gay love story Brokeback Mountain, drew the smallest U.S. TV audience since 2003, when 33 million tuned in to see the musical Chicago named best picture days after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began.

Before that, the last Oscar telecast to draw a smaller audience goes back to 1987, when Oliver Stone's Vietnam War drama Platoon clinched the big prize and 37.2 million viewers watched the show.

By comparison, last year's ceremony, which crowned boxing drama Million Dollar Baby as 2004's best film, drew 42.1 million viewers.

Nielsen ratings for the Oscars and other entertainment awards shows have generally declined over the years, though they tend to spike in years when films that packed the multiplexes also figured prominently at the Oscars.

That was not the case this year, as none of the five movies nominated for the top prize made a huge impact at the box office. And many of the performers nominated in the major categories, such as best actor winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, were hardly household names. Hoffman -- by the way -- had promised a friend that if he won, he would "bark" his acceptance speech like a dog (he didn't). He was probably too surprised by the win to remember his earlier pledge.

The Oscar-sponsoring Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the ABC network had hoped Stewart, a popular host of cable TV's faux newscast "The Daily Show," could generate additional interest this year, especially among young viewers who make up the core of his fan base.

That may have worked to some degree. According to Nielsen, ratings for Sunday's telecast were up 5 per cent over last year among hard-to-reach young male viewers, aged 18 to 34.

But Stewart, who built his career skewering politicians in general, and the Bush administration in particular, may have been a turnoff to some older viewers and to those in the nation's heartland.

"This year, when I saw Jon Stewart come up there, I had no interest at all in turning it on," said Allan Poturalski, 46, an investment management executive in Toledo, Ohio. "I don't like the way he bashes and condemns the administration."

On the other hand, in Canada, where satire (especially against politicians of any stripe) is much more acceptable, Jon Stewart's popularity knows no bounds. Vancouver businesswoman Deborah Faurot commented: "I wouldn't miss 'Doctor Jon' for the world. I call Jon Stewart 'the doctor' because he's the Doctor of Comedy."

Still, the Oscars gave ABC a welcome ratings boost over its network rivals, ranking as the night's most popular show by far and the most watched non-sports broadcast so far this season.

The Oscars also remain a coveted program for advertisers, with the average cost of a 30-second commercial spot on the Academy Awards growing in recent years to $1.5 million in 2004 and 2005, according to Nielsen.

Among the commercial spots shown first during the Oscars broadcast were trailers for Mission Impossible III starring Scientologist Tom Cruise (host Jon Stewart took a pot-shot at Scientologists) and the much-awaited The Da Vinci Code starring the always-charming Tom Hanks.

The biggest broadcast of all this year, as usual, was the Super Bowl championship game of the National Football League, which drew nearly 91 million viewers and averaged $2.5 million per 30-second spot.