The 96th Oscars on ABC drew 19.5 million viewers, up 37% from last year and the highest in four years.

ABC gave partial credit to the bigger numbers to the earlier start time of the broadcast. It didn’t hurt that films like Best Picture Oppenheimer and Barbie were huge box-office hits.

Viewing peaked in the final half-hour with 21.9 million total viewers.

The broadcast had a 3.81 rating among adults 18 to 49, according to fast national data from Nielsen. 

ABC said the Oscars’ audience was 14% bigger than the Grammys 105% higher than The Golden Globes and 333% higher than the Emmy Awards.

The Oscars were followed on ABC by an episode of Abbott Elementary, which scored a series high with 6.9 million total viewers and a 1.42 rating among adults 18-49.

Disney Advertising said it sold all of the advertising inventory for Sunday’s Oscars telecast.

Prices for 30-second spots ranged between $1.7 million to $2.2 million, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Advertising intelligence company Guideline's Forward Booking service found that advertisers are paying an average of about $1.4 million, up 18% from a year ago, when Guideline estimates that the ABC broadcast generated $66.2 million in ad revenue. Guideline gets it data from invoices in the traffic computers of major media agencies.

Traditionally one of TV’s most viewed non-sports events, the Oscars attracts sponsors that often create special commercials designed to connect with what is usually an engaged, affluent audience.

Advertisers of this year’s show include: Abbott Laboratories, Abbvie, Airbnb, Allstate, Astellas Pharma, Bank of America, Booking.com, Carnival Corp., Costar Group Inc.’s Homes.com, CVS, Diageo’s Don Julio brand, Discover Card, Doordash, Dunkin’ Donuts, Eli Lilly, Energizer Holdings, GetYourGuide, GlaxoSmithKline, Henkel, Intuit, Kenvue, Lionsgate, LVMH Group, Marshalls, MGM, Nerd Wallet, Nestle, Nissan’s Infiniti division, Panda Express, Peacock, Penney Opco, PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew and Baja Blast, Pfizer, Polestar, Procter & Gamble, Progressive, Rolex, Charles Schwab, Sirius XM Radio, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, State Farm, Talking Rain Beverage’s Sparkling Ice, TikTok, UCB Inc., Ulta, Unilever, Universal Pictures, Verizon, Walmart, Walt Disney Studios, Wayfair and Whirlpool.

Several brands will be incorporated into the awards show. Don Julio will get an in-show moment; an integration with Rolex will celebrate this year’s winners; and Bank of America is ensuring people with disabilities can enjoy and access the program with ease.

There will also be a first-of-its-kind red carpet live stream with TikTok, Disney said.

“On March 10, Hollywood’s biggest night returns and we couldn’t be more excited, along with our incredible brand partners, to once again have the honor to celebrate the greatest in films and storytelling,” Disney president of global advertising Rita Ferro said. “The Oscars stage and telecast continues to be the break-through moment for the most impactful brand marketers to bring their own creative storytelling to the cultural forefront through new innovation and never-before-seen activations.”

The 96th Oscars will air March 10, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.

Jimmy Kimmel, host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC, will host the 95th Oscars Sunday, March 12 on ABC. Kimmel hosted in 2017 and 2018. 

The Oscars, celebrating the best in film, happens at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood. 

“Having Jimmy Kimmel return to host The Oscars is a dream come true,” said Craig Erwich, president, ABC Entertainment, Hulu & Disney Branded Television Streaming Originals. “As we see every night on his own show, Jimmy can handle anything with both heart and humor, and we know that he will deliver the laughs and celebratory moments that define the Oscars. We love being the home of Hollywood’s biggest night and can’t wait to toast the success of this year’s cinema and storytelling.”

Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner are executive producers and showrunners of the event. Molly McNearney is an executive producer too. “We’re super thrilled to have Jimmy score his hat trick on this global stage,” Weiss and Kirshner said. ”We know he will be funny and ready for anything!” 

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards the Oscars, also known as the Academy Awards. 

“Being invited to host the Oscars for a third time is either a great honor or a trap,“ Kimmel said. ”Either way, I am grateful to the Academy for asking me so quickly after everyone good said ‘no.’ ” ■

Partway through the HBO historical drama The Gilded Age, presiding doyenne Mary Astor complains to a confidant about the influx of Robber Baron nouveau riche hoping to crash The 400, her zealously tended roster of the “acceptable” society families in 19th Century New York City. 

The problem, her confidant noted, is if you try to keep them all out, they’ll just start their own high society and cut you out. You have to let some in. 

We are now at that point with a very different and equally fusty exclusive society, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, which finally has been “letting some in” these past few years, in response to #OscarsSoWhite, #MeToo, and #BlackLivesMatter, and a push for broader international representation. Now, add streaming to the list of movements in more or less full standing with the Academy as it recognizes the full business and art of cinema. 

Finally, after the most eventful and emotion-stirring awards in many years, the Motion Picture Academy gave out its first Streaming Best Picture Oscar to CODA, a Sundance darling otherwise watched almost solely through Apple’s two-year-old Apple TV Plus. 

Now, the big question: with a Best Picture Oscar and Ted Lasso’s Best Comedy Emmy already in hand, will Apple CEO Tim Cook disclose more financial details about Apple TV Plus than the occasional sizzle reel at product announcements? Nah, probably not. 

CODA also won adapted screenplay for director Sian Heder and a historic supporting actor statue for deaf actor Troy Kotsur, whose signed acceptance speech was an emotional highlight in a night stuffed with them.

In winning, CODA beat out early insider favorite The Power of the Dog for Best Picture, leaving distributor Netflix once again at the altar, but so proud to be there, especially after Jane Campion made history by winning Best Director, only the third woman to do so.  Netflix’s deeply polarizing satire Don’t Look Up also made the big 10, but was shut out amid all three of its nominations. 

It was in some ways an even bigger night for another film that lived as much online as off, WarnerMedia’s Dune. The sci-fi epic won six Oscars, the most of the night, for behind-the-camera categories cinematography, editing, visual effects, sound, score, and production design. 

Though Dune’s $400 million global box office gross was by far the most successful theatrical film release of the 10 Best Picture nominees, it likely also was one of the two or three most watched online, too, debuting on HBO Max the same day it hit theaters. Third-party metrics from several companies suggest that lots of pandemic-wary fans skipped theaters to watch or re-watched its vast scope unfold on their big-screen TV at home. 

The good news for WarnerMedia, as it prepares to spin out of the uncertain embrace of AT&T and into the even more uncertain embrace of Discovery, is that Denis Villeneuve’s enchanting translation of Frank Herbert’s classic novel only covers the first half of the sprawling book. A sequel is already underway.

Even better, the first Dune novel spawned five sequels by Herbert and another 21 prequels co-written by his son. There’s enough IP to keep the company busy until long after Warner Bros. Discovery gets sold to a cryptocurrency company. 

Kotsur’s delightful and thoughtful speech was soon upstaged, when an outraged Will Smith charged the stage to slap presenter Chris Rock in the face for joking about his wife’s hair-loss challenges. 

Minutes later, Smith won his first Oscar, for WarnerMedia’s King Richard, the story about the father of two of the greatest tennis players in history, Venus and Serena Williams. Like Dune, it got a simultaneous streaming and theatrical release. Given its mediocre theatrical showing ($38 million worldwide), most of the viewing happened online, far from the hacking coughs of Delta-variant theater attendees.  

A tearful Smith used his awards speech to apologize to the academy and other nominees, though not to Rock, saying of the character he played in King Richard, “Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family … Art imitates life. I look like the crazy father, like Richard Williams. But love will make you do crazy things.” 

Even Costume Design went to a film that lived large online, Cruella. With the pandemic raging, Disney sent Jenny Beavan’s over-the-top designs and all the rest to Disney Plus in late May as part of its short-lived Premium VOD experiment. Though Cruella fashioned $233 million in theaters, the live-action prequel-reboot-whatever also was sold to Disney Plus subscribers for $30. 

Disney’s Encanto won Best Animated Feature, even though it and two other Mouse House animated nominees, Luca and Raya and the Last Dragon, only ran on Disney Plus. Encanto’s biggest competition was a Netflix film produced by Sony, The Mitchells vs. The Machines. 

The Best Documentary Feature winner, Summer of Soul (…Or When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised), was finally televised, on Hulu, half a century after its joyful musical performances were first recorded on a Harlem outdoor stage. After an opening-night debut last year at Sundance (against CODA), Summer grabbed only $3.7 million in theaters, but likely became a video soundtrack for a lot of house parties thanks to its Hulu presence. 

As director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson put it in another emotional speech, “this is a film that (my parents) should have taken me to when I was 5.” That didn’t happen, but the Academy seemed delighted to atone for the historic oversight that left festival footage in storage for decades.  

Before Kotsur, Thompson, and Smith did their bits to make this Oscar ceremony truly electric, I was pondering how long such a show can remain on broadcast. Yes, it’s still one of the bigger non-NFL ratings attractions. And yes, Disney used it to cross-promote nearly everything related to video that it makes, from local news to a handful of Hulu series, the Disney streaming bundle, breakout ABC hit Abbott Elementary and more.  

The advertisers included big names such as Rolex, whose homage to cinema seemed relatively tone-deaf next to repeated and simple fundraising ads in support of Ukraine by blockchain company crypto.com. The Academy relies on revenues from the Oscar telecast as a major bulwark in its operations, including film preservation, education and other programs, so as long as the advertisers keep showing up, maybe Oscar will too. 

But it’s also possible that, like so many other stalwart components of traditional broadcast/basic cable programming, as some point the Oscars will be streamed as much as the movies they’re awarding. 

Online, having the show run late might be less of an issue, allowing viewers to dispense with segments they don’t care about, or add new ones. One small addition this year was fan polls (notable outcome: Netflix’s zombie apocalypse Army of the Dead was the No. 1 “fan favorite movie”). Maybe we can start adding live prop bets, interactive data on previous award trends, and gambling courtesy of Draft Kings or MGM Mirage? 

As well, the Academy could add an even more inclusive In Memoriam segment, better honor those banished categories, dive deeper into the lifetime achievement award winners and make it easier to understand what the science and technology winners actually won for. And certainly, many fans might enjoy deeper explorations of such favorites as the James Bond franchise and The Godfather trilogy, which both had brief anniversary spotlights Sunday night.

A streamed awards show might even provide room for a new category or two, like one for stunt performers. Why not? The academy actually has come quite a ways over the past five years (though admittedly, from very far back). Maybe there are still a few steps forward that it can take.

Will Packer was named to produce the 94th Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced Tuesday.

Award shows have been struggling because traditional star-studded gatherings have been prevented by the pandemic. The Oscars — historically one of most-viewed shows of the year other than football — have been particularly hard hit because movie openings have been delayed until people can go to the theaters safely.

This year’s Oscars telecast on ABC drew 10.4 million people, down 56% from the previous year.

“Will is a powerhouse producer who has enjoyed success across all movie genres. He’s already bringing a boundless energy and a focus on innovation to this year’s Oscars to entertain the widest spectrum of fans,“ Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson said in a statement. “Many wonderful surprises ahead!” 

“There is no one better than Will Packer to celebrate our collective love for cinema,” added Craig Erwich, president, Hulu originals and ABC Entertainment. “Will is a world-class hitmaker and the ideal producer to capture the prestige of ‘The Oscars’ and deliver a powerful and moving event.”

The Oscars have also been working on diversity and inclusion since the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite trended in 2015.

“The power, the beauty, the romance of the imagery in movies has always attracted me,“ Packer said. ”I’m fully embracing the challenge of bringing an ode to one of the most iconic mediums in the world to life. What an honor!” 

Packer’s television shows include That Girl Lay Lay, Being Mary Jane, Uncle Buck and the remake of Roots. He produced and executive produced such films as The Photograph, What Men Want, Girls Trip, Straight Outta Compton, Ride Along, Think Like a Man, Obsessed and Stomp the Yard.

Shayla Cowan, chief of staff of Will Packer Productions and Will Packer Media, will serve as co-producer alongside Packer. 

The 94th Oscars will be held March 27 at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. ABC will broadcast the event, which will be televised in more than 200 territories worldwide.

This year’s Oscars were produced by television producer Jesse Collins, film producer Stacey Sher and director Steven Soderbergh.

Several streaming services could experience a nice Oscars-related bump in streams and subscribers sign ups -- to go along with an increase in industry prestige -- given the platform's strong performance during last night's Academy Awards ceremony.

The biggest winner during ABC's live Oscars broadcast Sunday was Netflix, who took home an industry leading seven Academy Award statuettes for five different projects, including two for its drama films Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Mank. 

While Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom star Chadwick Boseman did not posthumously take home the best actor award as he did within the category at the Critics Choice, Golden Globes, and Screen Actors Guild awards -- he was upset by 83-year old Anthony Hopkins’ performance in The Father --  the film did win best makeup and hairstyling as well as best costume design. The film, produced by Denzel Washington, stars Academy Award nominated Viola Davis in the role of 1920’s blues singer Ma Rainey and follows the exploits of a 1927 recording session in Chicago. 

Oscars 2021: Photos From the 93rd Academy Awards

Netflix’s Mank, which chronicles the making of the 1941 Citizen Kane film, also took home two statuettes for production design and best cinematography. Netflix’s documentary My Octopus Teacher won for best documentary feature, while short films Two Distant Strangers and If Anything Happens I Love You won for the best live action and best animated short categories respectively. 

Netflix's Oscars showing is good news for the streamer, which last week reported an anemic, pandemic-addled first quarter performance in which it tallied a lower than expected 4 million new subscribers.

Also Read: Netflix adds Just 4 Million New Subscribers in 1st Quarter

Other services like Hulu should benefit from having the streaming rights to this year’s best picture, Nomadland. The movie, which premiered on Hulu in February, also won the best actress award for star Frances McDormand and best director for Chloe Zhao. Zhao becomes the first woman of color to win the award, and only the second woman behind The Hurt Locker’s Kathryn Bigelow.

Amazon Prime is currently the home for two-time Academy Award winning film the Sound of Metal, which won the Oscar for best sound and best film editing. The movie, which follows Oscar-nominated star Riz Ahmed as a rock band drummer who begins to lose his hearing, was also nominated for best picture.

Disney, which finished second to Netflix with five Oscars wins, should generate increased interest for its Disney Plus streaming service through its owned studio Pixar’s animated film Soul. The movie, which stars Jamie Foxx as a black musician whose soul hovers between Earth and the afterlife, won Oscars for best animated film and best score. Disney Plus debuted Soul this past Christmas and it currently streams on the service. 

Also Read: Disney Plus' 'Soul' Ranked No. 1 for Christmas Week Streaming, Nielsen Says

Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney stormed this year's Academy Awards with a slate of prestigious, well-reviewed films that had already secured the streaming platform's position among the most successful and prolific producers and distributors of Hollywood films before the first envelope was opened during last night’s ceremony. Now, with a truckload of Oscars and streaming rights to many of last night's biggest winners in tow, streamers are sitting pretty among the major power brokers in the film world.

Take a look at photos from the 2021 Oscars, which aired live on ABC Sunday, April 25 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT from Los Angeles's Union Station and the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center.

Also Read: For Netflix and Amazon, Long Road to Oscar Dominance Could Culminate Sunday

In 2015 the entertainment industry called out the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences after none of the Academy Awards’ 20 acting nominations went to people of color. The #OscarsSoWhite hashtag became a rallying cry for greater inclusion and recognition of performances by and content from women and people of color.

While some may argue that this year’s crop of 2021 Oscar nominations snubbed many quality and arguably deserving and diverse film performances (Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods most notable), there’s no doubt that the Academy has made some strides with regards to inclusiveness, and presented one of its most diverse list of nominees ever.

Nearly half of the Academy’s acting nominations went to people of color this year, including three actors of Asian descent: two for best lead actor (Sound of Metal’s Riz Ahmed and Minari’s Steven Yeun) and one for best supporting actress (Minari’s Yuh-Jung Youn). In addition, six Black actors were nominated for acting awards: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’s Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman; The United States vs. Billie Holiday’s Andra Day; One Night in Miami’s Leslie Odom Jr. and Judas and the Black Messiah’s LaKeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya.

Davis’s best actress nomination for her performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was her fourth acting nomination, the most for any Black actress.

Behind the camera, Chloe Zhao’s best director nomination for her work on Nomadland is the first for a woman of color in the category. Overall, a reported 70 women received a whopping 76 Oscar nominations, a remarkable and precedent-setting achievement.

In a pandemic-influenced year that featured an expanded Oscar field that for the first time included cinema-targeted movies that debuted first on streaming services along with theatrically-released films, diversity and inclusion was the big winner. 

Multichannel News will explore the topic of diversity and inclusion in front and behind the camera as well as in the C-suites a part of its March 16 Culture X Conversations virtual conference,  which will feature insights from television and media leaders who are engaged in diversifying their workspace as well as content they produce so that its inclusive of those who identify by their ethnicity, nationality, language, special needs or sexual orientation. To register, click here.

Netflix earned 35 Academy Award nominations on Monday, more than any other media company this year, up by 11 nods year over year.

David Fincher’s Mank earned Netflix 10 nominations, including one in the best picture category. Also included in the best picture category are Netflix films The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods earned one nomination for best score.

Netflix’s Oscar nomination domination isn’t a surprise. The pandemic forced movie theaters around the country to close for the majority of 2020. In April 2020, the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences made a one-time-only concession, permitting films scheduled to be released in theaters to still be eligible if they debuted on streaming services. Previously, movies needed to have a minimum week-long theatrical run in order to qualify for consideration.

In the most influential Oscar campaign yet for video streaming, Amazon walked away with 12 nominations combined for Sound of Metal, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and One Night in Miami.

Searchlight Picture’s Nomadland garnered six nominations, including one for director Chloé Zhao, the first time a woman of Asian descent received a nod in the category. In all likelihood the majority of people who have seen the critical hit watched it on Hulu, where the film is currently streaming. 

Andra Day, star of Hulu’s The United States Vs. Billie Holiday, received a best actress nod. 

Warner Bros’ Judas and the Black Messiah, which debuted day and date on HBO Max, garnered six nods. The historical drama debuted in theaters and on HBO Max in February along with the rest of the Warner Bros. slate. 

And Disney Plus received nominations for Onward, Mulan, Soul and The One and Only Ivan.

And Apple garnered its first nominations--one for best animated feature, Wolfwalkers, and another best sound nomination for Greyhound.

For the last several years, Netflix has tried to make inroads with the Academy, especially in the coveted Best Picture category. The streaming service spends considerable funds on limited theatrical releases for all the films they have qualified over the years. In 2019 the service put The Irishman in theaters for 26 days before placing it on television during the Thanksgiving weekend.  But the Academy’s suspension of its rule requiring theatrical releases, put to bed -- at least this year -- the debate over films made for television versus true theatrical films.

Back in April, Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson said in a statement that organization was “unchanged and unwavering” about their commitment to the theatrical experience.

A bold statement given the fact that streamer services and their subscribers are increasing by the day. To say that films released on streaming services aren’t theatrical film seems a bit silly at this point. 

Three years ago Steven Spielberg caused a ruckus when he questioned the validity of films released on streaming services, “Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie,” Spielberg said in a 2018 interview with ITV News. “I don’t believe that films that are given token qualifications, in a couple of theaters for less than a week, should qualify for the Academy Award nomination.”

But after 2020, when all of the nominated films were predominantly watched on TV screens it seems clear that the Academy will have to adjust to the changing times.

The 93rd Academy Awards air Sunday, April 25, on ABC.

Pasadena, Calif. — National Geographic will premiere its Academy Award-nominated film Free Solo on March 3 on a commercial free basis, the network announced during its Friday Television Critics Association winter press tour session.

The movie, which follows rock climber star Alex Honnold as he successfully climbed the more than 3,000 ft El Capitan rock cliff in Yosemite National Park without a rope, was nominated for an 2019 Academy Award for best documentary feature and is the second highest grossing docu film of 2018 with more than $17 million, according to the network.

"The plan was always to air it on the channel in [first quarter 2019), but certainly the movie's juggernaut [box office] performance pushed it back toward the end of the first quarter,” said Carolyn Bernstein, executive vice president of scripted content and documentary films said during the panel.

Nat Geo also announced a partnership with Procter & Gamble for Activate, a six-part documentary series focusing on extreme poverty, inequality and sustainability issues to help mobilize global citizens to drive meaningful and lasting change, said network officials. 

The series, which will feature Uzo Aduba, Rachel Brosnahan, Hugh Jackman, Gayle King, Usher and Pharrell Williams and will showcase firsthand the work that is being done to combat extreme poverty and inspire a global movement, will debut globally in fall 2019, according to Nat Geo. 

As Hollywood prepares for Sunday’s Academy Awards, Fuse is shining a light on the underrepresentation of Hispanics among the major Oscar acting categories.

Fuse has teamed with the National Hispanic Media Coalition to bring more attention to the fact that none of the Oscar nominees for best actor or actress is Latino. Further, Latino actors and actresses have only garnered 16 nominations and six wins in 90 years, according to the Huffington Post.

The NHMC is planning to demonstrate the day before the Oscars to bring light to the disparity.

“We want to help them get the conversation going – they are the watchdog of Latinos in media, and they are there to elevate Latino voices on air and online, and that’s what we are here to do,” said Judi Lopez, Fuse senior vice president of distribution and affiliate marketing. “It’s important that we’re raising the issue and locking arms with them.”

Added NHMC president Alex Nogales: “We applaud Fuse for standing up for the Latino community by helping us drive awareness for this incredible inequity in representation. More media companies need to take notice and need to follow the example.”  

On Sunday, against the Oscars telecast, Fuse will air commercial-free the 2014 dramedy film Dear White People, which examines escalating racial tensions at a fictitious college. As part of that telecast, Fuse will also premiere several interstitials featuring footage from the 1950 classic film Cyrano de Bergerac, starring José Ferrer (pictured) -- the only Latino actor ever to win an Oscar for best actor. The remixed footage will use humor to call attention to the lack of Latino representation and provide thought-provoking facts on inclusion in entertainment, Fuse said.

“The interstitials are a play on what’s going on and how ludicrous the [Latino] representation – or lack thereof – is in the Oscar categories and in Hollywood,” Lopez said. 

Indeed, Latino actors and actresses represented only 3.1% of speaking roles in major Hollywood films from 2007 to 2016, Lopez said. With 56 million Hispanics in the U.S., the numbers are embarrassing.

The lack of Latino actors and actresses in prominent speaking roles may also be affecting Latino movie attendance. Lopez said Latinos represent 24% of movie ticket buyers today, down from 32% of movie ticket buyers just four years ago.

On the flip side, movies that have significant Latino representation and reflect the culture, such as Disney’s animated film Coco, can perform well at the box office. The Mexican folktale-themed film with a predominately Hispanic vocal cast has generated more than $208 million in domestic box office sales since its November 2017 release, according to Box Office Mojo.

“At 18% of the population, Latinos are still over-indexing on buying movie tickets, but you have to ask the question as to why those movie ticket buying numbers are down,” Lopez said. “Maybe its because they’re not seeing themselves represented in the movies, and representation and engagement is key. When you see yourself on television or in the movies, it resonates deeply.” 

Lopez said the network is in the planning stages of developing other initiatives that will continue to tackle the issues of inclusion and diversity beyond the Oscars both on its linear network and online. 

“This is going to have at least raised the issue during the moment in time we have here during the Oscars, and we’re going to keep on that mission,” she said. “I think there’s going to be a lot of visibility within the Latino community, and we’ll continue to look for opportunities to keep amplifying it.”