• by March 13, 2006

So, it seems that the traffic to Oscar-related Web sites was down. TV viewership of the awards show was down. The show was a snooze. And the gowns, well, they were a bore. But, hey, the films were great, at least according to this here Minute. We loved the films.

The traffic part of this equation is confirmed by comScore Networks, which conducted an analysis of global and U.S. online activity surrounding the 2006 Academy Awards. The analysis found that the March 5 broadcast of the event, which was expected to send a lot of traffic to the official sites run by the Academy and ABC, such as Oscar.com and Oscars.org, had little, if any, effect on related entertainment sites.

ComScore reports that even though the Internet Movie Database, (IMDB.com), attracted 2.5 million visitors worldwide on Oscar Sunday, the Academy Awards show didn't produce a significant jump for this site, and traffic rose only 3 percent versus the previous Sunday (Feb. 26). Worldwide traffic to eonline.com was virtually flat on Oscar night compared to the previous Sunday, and decreased by 13 percent compared to the day before the show.

Although sites bearing the name of the award did experience triple digit increases in worldwide traffic on the night of the awards, their low overall traffic levels spoke to consumers' lack of interest in the awards, according to comScore.

Traffic to Oscar.com increased 642 percent versus the previous Sunday and 108 percent versus the day before the awards (Saturday, March 4), yet the site still drew less than 250,000 visitors worldwide on Oscar Sunday. While Oscars.org also experienced significant traffic increases versus both the Sunday and Saturday before the show, posting 240 percent and 156 percent gains respectively, the site attracted only a little more than 100,000 visitors worldwide.

Now that's a shame. At least we enjoyed some fun parties.