Oscars get audience lift from ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer,’ but ratings aren’t lofty

By ANDREW DALTON
AP Entertainment Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Barbenheimer” brought a bump not a boom to Oscars ratings. An estimated 19.5 million people watched Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony on ABC. That’s the biggest number the telecast has drawn in four years. But that upward trend comes from an all-time low during the pandemic, and is up just 4% from last year, according to numbers released Monday by ABC. The Academy experimented with starting this year’s show an hour earlier, and for the first time in years had many nominations for hit movies that viewers had actually seen like “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.” Viewership peaked in the final half-hour when “Oppenheimer” won three of the four top awards.