HOLLYWOOD - Even with record-low ratings for Sunday's Oscar telecast, ABC still came out on top for the week in total viewers and the key 18-49 demographic.According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 75th Annual Academy Awards were watched by an average of 33 million viewers, the lowest tally in nearly 30 years, managing just a 12.5 rating/30 share in the18-49 age group.
Although ABC's numbers were lower than expected post-Oscar, the 13.4 million total viewers for the alphabet network kept them in first place. NBC came in second with 10.3 million, followed by Fox (10 million) and CBS (9.3 million).
The networks jumped on the continuing news coverage bandwagon after the war broke out Wednesday night, pre-empting programming to cover events in the Middle East. The coverage for the most part was ad-free and did not count in the weekly ratings. According to the Reporter, ABC was news-only Thursday and Friday in primetime, NBC devoted an hour of primetime to special war coverage Thursday, Friday and Saturday (postponing Ed in a new time slot as well as the premiere of The Most Talented Kid in America), and Fox cleared its programming schedule Thursday for the war.
CBS aired the NCAA men's basketball tournament games Thursday, Friday and Saturday but cited a double-digit decline in viewership compared to last year's tournament, another likely result of the war's outbreak.