• by Wayne Friedman , February 28, 2011

Viewers seemingly agree with critics who said ABC's "The 83rd Academy Awards" was anticlimactic -- as key viewership fell from the year before.

Big marketing and press already signaled that "The King's Speech," Natalie Portman, and Christian Bale would be winners of Oscar hardware. Some of this could have contributed to a Nielsen 12% decline in ratings among key 18-49 viewers.

The show earned an 11.7 rating/27 share among 18-49 viewers. Overall, it earned a Nielsen 37.6 million average viewers, down nearly 4 million -- or 10% -- from year-ago numbers.

Last year's 18-49 rating was a 13.3, and overall average viewer numbers were 41.3 million.

While the smaller "The Hurt Locker" won for best picture of the year last year, analysts say it was "Avatar" -- which went on to become the largest worldwide box office movie ever -- that pushed up the show's overall numbers -- the biggest in five years.

The highest viewership for the Oscar show was in 1999, where the best picture went to "Titanic," earning 55.2 million viewers. Typically, the Oscar broadcast is the second-largest single TV show in a particular year after the Super Bowl.

While virtually everything was in reruns on this latest Oscar evening, CBS offered a full slate of originals: "60 Minutes" was at a 1.2/4, down from its 1.4 rating of a week ago; "The Amazing Race" slipped around the same percentage to a 2.1/5, down from a 2.5 premiere a week ago; and "CSI: Miami" was off almost 10% to a 2.0/7, down from a 2.2 rating.

Early pre-Oscar programming gave ABC a 5.2/15 number for the night.

Overall, ABC scored a 9.1/23; Fox came in at 1.9/5; CBS was at 1.7/4; NBC earned a 0.9/2; and Univision had a 0.8/2.