Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs

[Disney Irish]

I'm sure this'll just prompt another post about how it's not 1975 anymore, but oh. Hey. It turns out that ratings were actually up this year.

Oscars Hit 18.1 Million Viewers, Down 7% From Last Year

18.1 million viewers tuned into Sunday's Oscars, the show's first viewership drop in four years.

variety.com

And... I see that they didn't update the headline, so:

They did update the headline after you posted it.

But this doesn't surprise me, its going to be the younger generation that leads in the demographics from now on and so it makes sense that they also saw an increase in viewership via alternative forms of watching rather than on a traditional TV.

 

[donaldtoo]

It's just like if a movie bombs, it's a cue to blame politics. If a movie does well, any political commentary is conveniently ignored.

Have you ever seen “Forrest Gump”…?

 

[TP2000]

It puzzles me that so many cite political content as the reason the Oscars have lost viewership. Probably the most political moments in the ceremonies’ history occurred in the ’70s, long before the drop in figures.

Aside from that young Indian lady who accepted an award for someone (I can't remember who) and gave a short protest speech on the plight of the American Indian, which elicited boos from the celebrity audience, I can't think of any big political moments or themes during the 1970's shows. And then John Wayne got all upset about it, which fueled the stunt further.

I may have just forgotten, and I'm sure there was something besides the Indian lady, but the tone and shift was noticeable and rather off-putting in the 2010's. I don't remember the 70's Oscars being that way year after year, much less the 80's or 90's.

 

[TP2000]

I'm sure this'll just prompt another post about how it's not 1975 anymore, but oh. Hey. It turns out that ratings were actually up this year.

Oscars Hit 18.1 Million Viewers, Down 7% From Last Year

18.1 million viewers tuned into Sunday's Oscars, the show's first viewership drop in four years.

variety.com

And... I see that they didn't update the headline, so:

Nielsen found a million kids watching the Oscars on their computer screens and phones? These poor children don't have a proper TV set? Or were they grounded in their room and watching under the covers?

Regardless, I've created an updated chart of the Oscars annual viewership since 2000, in case anyone wants to print this out and put it on their fridge.

And here's Fun Facts for you to use at your next dinner party:

19.7 Million people is 5.7% of the US population in 2025
19.7 Million people is 17% less people than the 23.6 Million who watched the Oscars in 2020
19.7 Million people is 58% less people than the 46.3 Million who watched the Oscars in 2000
19.7 Million people is the amount of visitors Disneyland got in total from 1955 to 1961!

 

[Disney Irish]

Nielsen found a million kids watching the Oscars on their computer screens and phones? These poor children don't have a proper TV set? Or were they grounded in their room and watching under the covers?

Regardless, I've created an updated chart of the Oscars annual viewership since 2000, in case anyone wants to print this out and put it on their fridge.

And here's Fun Facts for you to use at your next dinner party:

19.7 Million people is 5.7% of the US population in 2025
19.7 Million people is 17% less people than the 23.6 Million who watched the Oscars in 2020
19.7 Million people is 58% less people than the 46.3 Million who watched the Oscars in 2000
19.7 Million people is the amount of visitors Disneyland got in total from 1955 to 1961!

View attachment 847172

Ok Boomer, or maybe realize that not everyone consumes media via a TV anymore, this isn't 1972 where a household only consumes media via a single TV and everyone gathers around it to watch the Brady Bunch. Media is consumed in many different ways today, and the younger generations are less likely to own an actual TV instead choosing to use one of their many other devices to watch media.

But still it shows the Oscars, something you should be raving about, seems to be making a trend back in the right direction with viewership on the rise. And that its the younger generation that is paving the way for this. So you can rest assured that there may actually be a resurgence of your classic Oscar parties you mourn aren't happening anymore.

 

[brideck]

Nielsen found a million kids watching the Oscars on their computer screens and phones? These poor children don't have a proper TV set? Or were they grounded in their room and watching under the covers?

You're a Nielsen "family," so if you read the instructions you should understand how this all works.

Anyway, there's a pretty decent correlation (R^2 = .6566) between number of movie tickets sold and viewership of the following year's Oscars (using data back to 1995), which makes pretty good sense to me. If people come back to the theaters more and more, then these ratings should go up correspondingly.

The biggest outliers were:
Positive: '98 Oscars, which drew at least 15m more viewers than you'd expect. We'll call that the Titanic effect.
Negative: '20 Oscars -- most (but not all) of the Oscars have been a touch below expectations since the '16 ceremony, which... huh, I'll just let people draw their own obvious conclusions there. [The '02 ceremony is actually a very close second, which was impacted by the invasion of Iraq starting just 3 days before the event.]

 

[Disney Irish]

You're a Nielsen "family," so if you read the instructions you should understand how this all works.

You assumed he read it and understood it. I mean we know he doesn't follow their basic instructions of not talking about it on the internet since he posted proudly here about it.

 

[TP2000]

You're a Nielsen "family," so if you read the instructions you should understand how this all works.

They sent me a small box, only slightly larger than a deck of cards, that is plugged in to my Internet router, from which my various Xumo boxes in the house operate via WiFi.

This is perhaps because during their second and far more elaborate survey I told them I do not watch TV shows on my phone or computer, because I don't.

I can easily imagine that if a Nielsen Family says yes on that part of the survey, they coordinate some other type of tracking device or format for them. Who knows how that works? But for me, it's just my TV sets. YMMV.

Anyway, there's a pretty decent correlation (R^2 = .6566) between number of movie tickets sold and viewership of the following year's Oscars (using data back to 1995), which makes pretty good sense to me. If people come back to the theaters more and more, then these ratings should go up correspondingly.

I think what we're seeing the past few years is just a continuation of the trend that began in 2015. It crashed during Covid, and they've recovered from that. But the trendline is clear, and they still haven't returned to their pre-Covid viewership of 2020.

If you ignore the Covid Crash of 2021-2023 and observe the smoothed out trendline, it was a gradual decline from 2000 to 2014, then a complete nosedive from 2015 to 2025. Will the Oscars ever get back to the 23.6 Million they had in 2020?

 

[TP2000]

You assumed he read it and understood it. I mean we know he doesn't follow their basic instructions of not talking about it on the internet since he posted proudly here about it.

I excuse it away in my mind after being kicked out of church in the 70's for my sinful lifestyle choices.

I mean, if I'm going to Hell anyway, why not break a few more rules just for giggles?

 

[Tha Realest]

Aside from that young Indian lady who accepted an award for someone (I can't remember who) and gave a short protest speech on the plight of the American Indian, which elicited boos from the celebrity audience, I can't think of any big political moments or themes during the 1970's shows. And then John Wayne got all upset about it, which fueled the stunt further.

I may have just forgotten, and I'm sure there was something besides the Indian lady, but the tone and shift was noticeable and rather off-putting in the 2010's. I don't remember the 70's Oscars being that way year after year, much less the 80's or 90's.

Her purported Native ancestry has been disputed by multiple family members. Mary Louise Cruz.

Supposedly John Wayne was waiting in the wings and six men had to stop him from forcing her off stage.

 

[TP2000]

Ok Boomer, or maybe realize that not everyone consumes media via a TV anymore, this isn't 1972 where a household only consumes media via a single TV and everyone gathers around it to watch the Brady Bunch.

Oh, I had no idea. No wonder I'm tired more often now.

But still it shows the Oscars, something you should be raving about, seems to be making a trend back in the right direction with viewership on the rise. And that its the younger generation that is paving the way for this. So you can rest assured that there may actually be a resurgence of your classic Oscar parties you mourn aren't happening anymore.

The trendline is still down from its already crashing pre-Covid numbers for the 18-49 demographic.

In 2020, the Oscars had 23.64 Million viewers, with a 5.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

In 2025, the Oscars had 19.69 Million viewers, with a 4.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

Having your 18-49 demographic shed several Million viewers over a five year period is not something to be happy about. Especially if you are Disney and back in 2016 you agreed to pay $100 Million per year for the TV rights contract through 2028 to watch your audience disappear.

ABC SIGNS EXPANSIVE NEW AGREEMENT TO BROADCAST THE OSCARS®, HOLLYWOOD’S BIGGEST ENTERTAINMENT CEREMONY, THROUGH 2028 | Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

www.oscars.org

 

[Disney Irish]

They sent me a small box, only slightly larger than a deck of cards, that is plugged in to my Internet router, from which my various Xumo boxes in the house operate via WiFi.

This is perhaps because during their second and far more elaborate survey I told them I do not watch TV shows on my phone or computer, because I don't.

I can easily imagine that if a Nielsen Family says yes on that part of the survey, they coordinate some other type of tracking device or format for them. Who knows how that works? But for me, it's just my TV sets. YMMV.

I mean even you have to look beyond just yourself and note that if you are having to plug it into your internet router and not directly your TV that they are looking beyond just TV devices and rather ALL devices that consume media.

I think what we're seeing the past few years is just a continuation of the trend that began in 2015. It crashed during Covid, and they've recovered from that. But the trendline is clear, and they still haven't returned to their pre-Covid viewership of 2020.

If you ignore the Covid Crash of 2021-2023 and observe the smoothed out trendline, it was a gradual decline from 2000 to 2014, then a complete nosedive from 2015 to 2025. Will the Oscars ever get back to the 23.6 Million they had in 2020?

View attachment 847177

The trend though sort of reset post-Covid, just like it did for the box office. So we have the pre-Covid trend and the post-Covid trend. And for the post-Covid trend its going UP UP UP, not down.

It'll be interesting to see if this trend continues next year and where that new median viewership is going to be, I suspect somewhere in the mid-20s but we'll see.

 

[Disney Irish]

The trendline is still down from its already crashing pre-Covid numbers for the 18-49 demographic.

In 2020, the Oscars had 23.64 Million viewers, with a 5.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

In 2025, the Oscars had 19.69 Million viewers, with a 4.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

Having your 18-49 demographic shed several Million viewers over a five year period is not something to be happy about. Especially if you are Disney and back in 2016 you agreed to pay $100 Million per year for the TV rights contract through 2028 to watch your audience disappear.

ABC SIGNS EXPANSIVE NEW AGREEMENT TO BROADCAST THE OSCARS®, HOLLYWOOD’S BIGGEST ENTERTAINMENT CEREMONY, THROUGH 2028 | Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

www.oscars.org

As said above, maybe look at just the post-Covid and specifically the year-over-year numbers and see the trend is starting to change.

Also who cares if Disney spent $100M almost 10 years ago that money is already spent. Also they have been prepping for the decline in linear viewership now for almost the same amount of time. And if they drop the Oscars and it goes somewhere else to be broadcast because of numbers they don't find lucrative, then so be it. As said the Oscars will continue on even if there are no viewers because its an awards show for Hollywood by Hollywood.

 

[brideck]

It puzzles me that so many cite political content as the reason the Oscars have lost viewership. Probably the most political moments in the ceremonies’ history occurred in the ’70s, long before the drop in figures.

I decided to put this to the test and randomly watched the 1975 awards show*, and it was an interesting time capsule. There wasn't anything at all about Nixon, even though he'd just resigned and been pardoned in the last year, but the emcees (Bob Hope, Shirley MacLaine, Sammy Davis Jr., & Frank Sinatra) definitely made some political jokes and Sinatra was outright offensive to my ears.

The winners for Best Documentary (Hearts & Minds, a Vietnam documentary) read a letter from a Vietnamese leader as part of their acceptance speech. Over an hour later in the broadcast, Sinatra made a statement saying that the Academy apologizes for any political statements made by winners earlier in the evening. Apparently, this statement didn't actually come from the Academy, but from Bob Hope.

There was also a great deal of commentary from the old fuddie duddies emceeing the event about the permissive content starting to show up in the New Hollywood era of movies, which is rich if you know anything about Frank Sinatra's personal life. And multiple jokes were made at Dustin Hoffman's expense, who was boycotting the ceremony due to its garishness or something like that.

So... not political? I don't think so. Perhaps politicization is mostly only picked up on if you happen to disagree with the statements being made.

Fun aside: Two future stars of the Star Wars Holiday Special were up for Best Actor/Actress awards -- Art Carney and Diahann Carroll. Carney actually inexplicably won Best Actor that year, beating out Al Pacino (The Godfather Part II), Jack Nicholson (Chinatown), Dustin Hoffman (Lenny), and Albert Finney (Murder on the Orient Express) -- a real murderer's row of contenders.

*Anyone can!
)

 

[BrianLo]

Interesting! Did they reply to you saying something? Is it possible she's just on vacation?

Yes, twice. The plagiarism concerns were my key area of focus, I wasn’t going to them with essentially grievances on data interpretation or articles lacking a central thesis.

I demonstrated in a few minutes how the most recent Paris articles self plagerized large passages from at least three different past articles (that I found after a few minutes of googling on my phone). Also that it plagerized another author from the Tribune. Most of her articles were similarly formed, eventually I left it on its in their court to see how badly it pervades the last several years.

 

[Agent H]

Yes, twice. The plagiarism concerns with the key area of focus, I wasn’t going to them with essentially grievances on data interpretation or articles lacking a central thesis.

I demonstrated in a few minutes how the most recent Paris articles self plagerized large passages from three different past articles that I found and actually plagerized another author from the tribute. Most of her articles were similarly formed.

Wow! Good on you for doing something about this. You have made the world a better place.

 

[LittleBuford]

Aside from that young Indian lady who accepted an award for someone (I can't remember who) and gave a short protest speech on the plight of the American Indian, which elicited boos from the celebrity audience, I can't think of any big political moments or themes during the 1970's shows. And then John Wayne got all upset about it, which fueled the stunt further.

I may have just forgotten, and I'm sure there was something besides the Indian lady, but the tone and shift was noticeable and rather off-putting in the 2010's. I don't remember the 70's Oscars being that way year after year, much less the 80's or 90's.

This might jog your memory:

Politics and Oscar Night

 

[LittleBuford]

Another link for anyone interested:

Revisiting an Oscar Night Controversy — in 1975

By 1967, the commercial and political impact on Hollywood of the sixties counterculture had become impossible to ignore. The studios were in bad shape, still contending with a generation-long box office slump and struggling to get young people into the habit of going to the movies. Film historian J

www.ucpress.edu

 

[brideck]

Another link for anyone interested:

Revisiting an Oscar Night Controversy — in 1975

By 1967, the commercial and political impact on Hollywood of the sixties counterculture had become impossible to ignore. The studios were in bad shape, still contending with a generation-long box office slump and struggling to get young people into the habit of going to the movies. Film historian J

www.ucpress.edu

Crazy. I swear I'd never heard about any of it before either... was just picking the Oscars from 50 years ago because it was a nice, round number.

 

[LittleBuford]

Crazy. I swear I'd never heard about any of it before either... was just picking the Oscars from 50 years ago because it was a nice, round number.

It certainly helps to put things in perspective.