The 97th Academy Awards brought a big ratings bounce, approximately 19.7 million viewers in total, a five-year high, Disney reported. The surge was caused by a major rise in mobile and PC viewing, manifesting the shift in viewer behavior towards new forms of consumption patterns.
Nielsen’s preliminary numbers said only 18.1 million people were watching ABC’s telecast Sunday evening, which was down from 19.5 million a year ago. But refreshed calculations, however, took into account a digital viewership of 1.65 mil and turned things around and shows the shows broad appeal among younger viewers.
Conan O’Brien, a former late-night host, gave presided over the changling ceremony, and there’s electrifying performances, including Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo two “Wicked” stars performed thick with mesmerizing. Also a heartfelt tribute to the late music icon Quincy Jones was left by Queen Latifah. 
The Academy tried an early start time of 7 p.m. ET with a 10:30 p.m. ET wrap-up plan. Such as O’Brien humorously says to keep the show short, the program went just about four hours, wrapping up around 11 p.m. ET.
For the first time the ceremony was shown live over streaming. But a few viewers experience technical issues, with screens reading “This live event has now ended” to displays while the final awards were yet to be delivered. Disney subsequently apologized for the chaos, commenting on the streaming wrinkles.
The Oscars’ going digital is a sign of changing times in entertainment consumption, a bullelcence of older and newer platforms to reach more viewers.
