Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 28, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
This year’s Oscar broadcast brought US broadcasters a minor disaster. Ratings fell to their lowest level of all time. According to Nielsen surveys http://www.nielsenmedia.com only around 32 million US citizens watched Oscar night on TV in total. That is about a quarter fewer than the previous year. In 2007, close to 40 million Americans had gathered in front of their screens to follow the major event.
“In Germany, market shares remained at roughly similar levels compared with 2007. ProSieben achieved a market share of between 12.8 and 15 percent with the overnight live broadcast and reached between 210,000 and 340,000 viewers,” says Karin Walter of media-control. media-control could not assess why the ratings among the US audience had collapsed so dramatically. US observers speculate that the recently ended writers’ strike may still have had an effect. In addition, the nominated films this year were generally not major box-office hits and apparently attracted only moderate interest.
The previous lowest ratings in the USA came with the Oscar ceremony in 2003. At that time, only 33 million people had watched the broadcast on television, after American troops had invaded Iraq a few days earlier. In 2004, however, interest was significantly higher again – not least because of the record award-winner “The Lord of the Rings”.
In stark contrast to the USA, interest in this year’s Oscars in Austria is likely to continue for some time after the ceremony. There is great excitement over the first foreign-language Oscar in the history of the film award for Stefan Ruzowitzky’s “The Counterfeiters”. At the same time, however, the structural problems of the domestic film industry are now also being discussed. Many hope that the Oscar win will finally give politicians a reason to support the industry in the country more strongly.
