Host Seth MacFarlane Draws Big Ratings for Oscars Telecast

Whether you loved or hated Sunday night’s Academy Awards telecast, one thing is certain: you watched it. Ratings for the 85th Oscars ceremony revealed the red-hot event was the most watched entertainment telecast in three years, with the Seth MacFarlane-hosted show drawing an average audience of 40.3 million viewers and a 13.0 rating among adults aged 18-49.

Some other fun facts about the ratings: This marks the second straight year of overall growth for the Oscars (+3%), especially among adults (+11%). It was the second most watched telecast since 2005, easily overpowering the year’s other big awards ceremonies like the Golden Globes (20.6 million viewers) and the Grammys (11.9 million).

Throughout the entire Sunday broadcast—yes, including Kristin Chenoweth’s pre-show—over 80 million unique viewers tuned in to watch the Hollywood madness. Nielsen also reports that there were 6.4 million tweets sent from 1.6 million users during the actual Oscars. To be fair, we're probably responsible for about half of them during the Les Miz performance.