Oscars ratings at eight year low amid ‘#OscarsSoWhite’ diversity controversy

Ratings low: Chris Rock hosts the 88th Academy Awards
AFP/Getty Images
Jennifer Ruby1 March 2016
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

The ratings for this year’s Academy Awards hit an eight-year low on Sunday.

Despite being praised for his hosting abilities, it seems that Chris Rock couldn’t draw in the audiences amid this year’s ‘#OscarsSoWhite’ controversy.

According to early reports, ABC’s broadcast was only viewed by 34.4 million, which is the lowest it has been for eight years.

It is also the third lowest viewership in the history of the awards, despite the hype that had built around Rock’s opening monologue.

The Oscars 2016

1/37

The decline in ratings could have something to do with high profiles stars including Will Smith and Spike Lee calling for fans to boycott the awards.

Civil rights leader Al Sharpton also called on viewers to ‘tune out’ this year to highlight the lack of ethnic diversity in the acting categories.

He said in a statement: “One would have to assume we were effective and part of the decline.

"And to those that mocked the idea of a tune out, it seems the joke was on them."

Rock addressed the controversy in his opening monologue, saying that Hollywood was ‘racist’ but that the boycott wouldn’t change anything.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Best Actor win for The Revenant became the most talked about moment from the ceremony on social media, generating more than 440,000 tweets per minute.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in