The 80th Annual Academy Awards

[©brad]

Cody deserves her Oscar more than Matt and Ben do.

say whaaaaaat?

[polkablues]

Cody deserves her Oscar more than Matt and Ben do.

say whaaaaaat?

I'm assuming his point is that she actually wrote the script that she won for.

[MacGuffin]

Cody deserves her Oscar more than Matt and Ben do.

say whaaaaaat?

I'm assuming his point is that she actually wrote the script that she won for.

One could argue that Matt and Ben's "story" of being bit players who wrote a script for themselves to star in, and held out for that opportunity (much like Sly and Rocky - also a Screenplay Oscar winner) played a factor into their winning the Original Screenplay Oscar. Cody is a far better writer; her book shows this. I'm not denying that her stripper background didn't come into play with the voters, but Juno has a freshness to it and heart that Good Will Hunting doesn't have.

[JG]

dude diablo cody is not a hipster. she's not hip!

[MacGuffin]

Oscar ratings fall to all-time low
Telecast nabs smallest audience on record

In what could hardly be dubbed a surprise, Sunday's Academy Awards telecast on ABC took a tumble in the ratings, logging the show's smallest audience on record.

A batch of films with mostly grim themes, combined with an awards season that lacked any real momentum thanks to the writers strike, contributed to this year's alarming 20% falloff.

Preliminary Nielsen estimates show that an average of 32 million viewers were watching at any given minute during Sunday's three-hour-plus telecast hosted by Jon Stewart, with viewership peaking around 10 p.m.

While still a huge audience relative to that of most primetime fare, it's less than one-third the crowd generated by the Super Bowl on Fox earlier this month (97.5 million). It's also a smaller aud, by comparison, than those drawn to several other National Football League playoff games as well as the premiere episode this season of Fox's "American Idol."

Don't feel too badly for ABC, though, as the net sold most of its ad inventory prior to the start of the writers strike -- and made a nice profit by selling its 30-second spots for a whopping $1.8 million each. This year's ratings perf could hurt next year's ad sales, however.

Sunday's audience was down sharply from last year's 40.17 million and also below the kudocast's previous low-water mark of 33.04 million in 2003 (a show held just days after the country went to war in Iraq).

This year's Oscars had its own hurdles to overcome, most notably the four-month writers strike, which cut into preparation time for producers and writers.

ABC didn't have a lot of momentum heading into Sunday, either, lacking original episodes of its femme magnets "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives" to promote the kudocast. Also likely a factor was the selection of host, as there wasn't the curiosity factor that accompanied Stewart's first Oscar gig two years ago.

And then there were the nominees themselves, mostly little-seen pics and numerous foreign-born thesps, many of whom took home Oscars on Sunday.

The show averaged a 10.7 rating in adults 18-49, down 24% from last year (14.1) and 14% below the previous low of 2003 (12.5).

The top five highest-rated markets were New York (30.6 household rating/44 share), Chicago (29.1/43), San Francisco (27.2/47), West Palm Beach, Fla. (26.1/39), and Los Angeles (25.6/41). A year ago, New York generated a 35.3 rating and Los Angeles a 32.0.

There wasn't much competition on the other broadcast nets Sunday night, although it wouldn't be surprising to see ABC's rivals more aggressively counterprogram the Oscars in future years if its ratings continue to slide.

Fox ran second with a NASCAR race and a repeat of "The Simpsons," while CBS was down a bit week to week with "Big Brother" (prelim 2.2/5 in 18-49, 5.7 million) and "Dexter" (prelim 2.0/5, 6.5 million). NBC struggled to a 3 share in 18-49 and fewer than 5 million viewers overall with four repeats of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent."

National ratings for all Sunday shows, including ABC's other Oscar-related programming, will be issued by Nielsen today. In prelims, the "Oscars Red Carpet 2008" spec in the 8 o'clock half-hour leading into the kudocast averaged a 6.3 rating in 18-49 and 21.5 million viewers overall.

[cine]

dude diablo cody is not a hipster. she's not hip!

uh, those two are NOT mutually exclusive.

[JG]

dude diablo cody is not a hipster. she's not hip!

uh, those two are NOT mutually exclusive.

maybe i don't know what the term means, but to call diablo cody a hipster is to not give the hipsters enough credit. every person i know that i would define as a hipster rags on juno. not trying to defend hipsters, i'm just saying.

[hedwig]

did anybody else catch Gary Busey terrorizing Jennifer Garner and Ryan Seacrest on the red carpet before the show? Garner looked terrified. easily the most entertaining moment of the night.

another pre-show oddity: Regis passing by Javier Bardem and saying "And here's Xavier Bardem!"

[Kal]

I saw that with Busey... very funny. It seemed like Seacrest didnt know who he was for a moment...

Ratings thing completely obvious... it was probably the most interesting Oscars in a while in terms of 'TALENT' and good films, but who the fuck wants to see that? Bring nominations for Justin Timberlake and Brangelina, and performances by Britney and Eminem and America will watch!

[Alexandro]

I haven't read her book but the Good Will Hunting scrypt is better at doing the screenplay stuff without being so obvious. Every character in Hunting has a distinct voice and dignity.

[cine]

Ratings thing completely obvious... it was probably the most interesting Oscars in a while in terms of 'TALENT' and good films, but who the fuck wants to see that?

i really think a lot of it had to do with lack of media attention too.

[Sleepless]

Anyone else notice how pissed off she looked when they made her exit stage-right?

[RegularKarate]

My improv troupe was on the drive back from a festival while the Oscars were airing.
On the way up, I bought a shitty portable TV (with a cigarette light adapter).  The antenna broke off that TV so I bought another antenna at radioshack, then THAT antenna broke.
It still kind of barely worked, but driving in and out of different cities while trying to watch them made it very difficult, having one person looking up local affiliates of the cities we were driving through while another was constantly swinging the antenna around as the six people in the van watched on this five inch tube.

We heard "and the oscar for best original screenplay goBzzzzzzzzzzzzshhhhhhhhhhhhffzzzzzfzzzzLO CODY!"   

everyone in the van was pissed.

at least falling slowly won.

[theyarelegion]

Anyone else notice how pissed off she looked when they made her exit stage-right?

Diablo, right? She yanked the envelope out of Harrison Ford's hand too.

[cine]

My improv troupe was on the drive back from a festival

DSIF in NC??