By David Bauder, Media Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Will Smith's violent slap of Chris Rock at the Academy Awards appeared to have a negligible impact on the show's television audience. But the world of social media is a much different story.
ABC said there were some 22.7 million social media interactions during Sunday's ceremony — the most ever for an Oscars telecast and more than double the 9.5 million recorded from last year's show.
What do you suppose everyone was tweeting or posting about?
The network says Oscar videos notched 16 million views on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, also a record for the show. ABC does not have any details about what video clips were most popular, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
The telecast as a whole drew 16.6 million viewers, up 58% from the 2021 show that was dramatically scaled back due to the pandemic, the Nielsen company said. Yet this year's show was down 30% from the more typical 2020 broadcast, which had been the second-smallest audience.
Nielsen measures viewership in 15-minute increments, and the 17.3 million viewers during the quarter-hour when Smith's attack took place was virtually identical to the quarter-hour that followed.
Then the audience dipped to 16.8 million before rising to 17.4 million during the period Smith won his best actor award, Nielsen said.
Led by its NCAA men's basketball tourney coverage, CBS won the week with an average of 6.2 million in primetime. Despite boasting the Oscars, ABC was second with 5 million. NBC had 2.28 million, Fox had 2.27 million, Univision had 1.5 million, Ion Television had 1.1 million and Telemundo had 960,000.
TBS, also boosted by the NCAAs, led the cable networks with an average of 2.81 million in prime time. Fox News Channel had 2.47 million, MSNBC had 1.12 million, HGTV had 1.11 million and CNN had 876,000.
ABC's "World News Tonight" led the evening news ratings race with an average of 8.3 million viewers last week. NBC's "Nightly News" averaged 6.8 million and the "CBS Evening News" had 4.9 million.
For the week of March 21-27, the 20 most-watched programs in primetime, their networks and viewerships:
1. "The Academy Awards," ABC, 16.62 million.
2. NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament: Arkansas vs. Duke, TBS, 10.34 million
3. NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament: St. Peter's vs. Purdue, CBS, 10.18 million.
4. NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament: North Carolina vs. UCLA, CBS, 8.82 million.
5. NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament: Texas Tech vs. Duke, CBS, 8.23 million.
6. NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament: Arkansas vs. Gonzaga, CBS, 8.16 million.
7. "NCAA Pregame" (Saturday), TBS, 8.04 million.
8. "FBI," CBS, 8.02 million.
9. "NCAA Pregame" (Thursday), CBS, 7.93 million.
10. "Live From the Red Carpet" (7:27 to 8 p.m.), ABC, 7.73 million.
11. "NCAA Pregame" (Friday), CBS, 7.3 million.
12. "60 Minutes," CBS, 7.29 million.
13. NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament: Houston vs. Villanova, TBS, 7.1 million.
14. "NCIS," CBS, 6.65 million.
15. "FBI: International," CBS, 6.11 million.
16. "FBI: Most Wanted," CBS, 5.79 million.
17. "The Neighborhood," CBS, 5.72 million.
18. "Live From the Red Carpet" (6:58 to 7:27 p.m.), ABC, 5.45 million.
19. "Bob Hearts Abishola," CBS, 5.39 million.
20. "Survivor," CBS, 5.35 million.
“Scandal” cast will reunite for online script reading for hurricane relief in western North Carolina
The cast of ABC's hit political drama "Scandal" may need to brush up on their snappy, speedy delivery known as "Scandal-pace," because they're reuniting for a good cause. Its stars including Kerry Washington, Tony Goldwyn and Bellamy Young will take part in a live virtual script reading on Nov. 17 to raise money for hurricane relief in western North Carolina.
Beginning Friday, fans can go online and donate to reserve a spot for the online reading. Proceeds will benefit United Way of North Carolina. Everyone who donates will be able to take part in a virtual pre-event with the cast and Shonda Rhimes will give an introduction.
Additional guest stars will also be announced. The online fundraising platform Prizeo is also holding a contest where one person who donates online via their site will be selected to read a role from the script with the actors. The winner should not worry about the "Scandal"-pace, assured Young over Zoom.
"Whomever the lucky reader is can read at whatever pace they want," she said.
Young, who played Mellie Young, the first lady and later Republican presidential nominee on "Scandal," was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina. She came up with the idea for the effort with a friend and took it to her fellow "Scandal" actors, who all jumped on board. Young said this is the first script reading the cast has all done together since the show ended after seven seasons in 2018.
Which episode they will be reading has not been announced yet.
Young said it's "been devastating" to see so many parts of her hometown badly damaged by Hurricane Helene, which ravaged western North Carolina one month ago.
To research the best use for donations, Young spoke with numerous political leaders, including North... Read More