• by Wayne Friedman , March 13, 2023

Reversing the declining results of the last few years, ABC’s “The Oscars” (“The 95th Academy Awards”) posted a 12% gain in viewership versus the year before to 18.7 million Nielsen-measured viewers, according to the measurement service’s fast-national results.

It was the best result since 2020 -- with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when businesses including movie theaters across the U.S. closed down.

Adult 18-49 viewers posted a 4.0 rating -- up 5% from the 2021 Oscars broadcast.

According to Vizio’s smart TV-based Inscape data business, this year's Oscars pulled in 5.67% of programming minutes watched on Sunday night -- number one among all programming.

All Oscars-related programming accounted for 7.52% of watch-time.

Total ABC estimated national TV advertising amounted to $106.1 million for 63 airings of Oscar TV commercials, per iSpot.tv. This pulled in 505.7 million impressions for viewers 18 years and older.

According to EDO Ad EnGage, Disney’s "The Little Mermaid" scored the best results when it came to driving incremental online engagement, with a 8,023 index. That means it was 80 times more effective at driving engagement than the medium Oscar ad that aired.

Second-best was a spot for Lucid Motors, with a 2,777 score, followed by one for software company Autodesk featuring a faux Hollywood film executive named Otto Desc (with a 1,750 index), Universal's Pictures’s “Oppenheimer” (a 1,212 index), and the automobile brand Dodge for the revival of the Dodge Hornet (a 918 index).

Top paid advertisers for the broadcast included Rolex, Verizon, Paxlovid, Paramount+, Volvo, Autodesk, Pfizer, Apretude and Snapchat, according to iSpot.tv.

In addition to Paramount+, major entertainment marketers included Universal Pictures and Lucasfilm.

Related Disney-company advertising and marketing were driven by one broad-content brand spot for Walt Disney and one for the FX Network as well as its streaming businesses, Disney+ (“The Mandalorian”, “American Born Chinese”) and Hulu (“History Of The World Part II,” “Only Murders in the Building” and “The Bear”).

ABC Television Network offered up on-air promos for “Abbot Elementary” and “Good Morning America,” as well as upcoming shows “The Company You Keep” and "The Prank Panel."

“Everything Everywhere All At Once” -- a highly regarded movie that was expected to win plenty of hardware awards --  came away with the top prize for Best Picture. It won seven awards in total --including best picture, director, original screenplay, lead actress, supporting actress, best supporting actor and editing.