• by Wayne Friedman , March 3, 2014

ABC’s “The Oscars” witnessed higher ratings for the third year in a row.

The big film award special grew 7% in adult 18-49 viewers over a year ago to a Nielsen preliminary 12.9 rating/30 share -- as well as posting 43 million overall average viewers.

Better news for ABC came on the social media front:  ABC, by way of Nielsen’s SocialGuide, says the total number of tweets almost doubled to 11.2 million from 6.4 million a year ago. Those tweets came from 2.8 million unique users, with the audience of those tweets at 13.9 million. ABC says each person viewed on average 75 tweets.

Each half-hour of ABC’s pre-show programming “Oscars Red Carpet Live!" from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. grew, leading up to the major event -- a 5.3/16 among 18-49 viewers and 21.4 million overall viewers between 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m; then a 6.8/19 and 25.7 million viewers, 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.; and finally a 9.1/23 and 33.3 million viewers, 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.  

Overall, “Oscars Red Carpet Live!” was up slightly to an average 7.1 adults 18-49 rating from a 7.0 the year before.
The only two other network programs that ran original content on the night were from CBS’ -- “60 Minutes”, at 7 p.m., with a 1.4/4 and 9.2 million viewers, and “The Amazing Race” at  8 p.m., with a 1.5/4 and 6.04 million viewers.

For the night, among key 18-49 viewers, ABC averaged a 10.2/26 with Fox, NBC and CBS each posting a 1.0/2. Univision was behind this trio with a 0.6/2.

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