Last year was no great shakes, and this year it seems overall viewership dropped a full 20 percent. From Variety:

The 21.9 rating is also considerably below the 25.5 rating earned by the 2003 Academy Awards telecast, which set the low-water mark for viewership when it averaged just over 33 million viewers. It would seem to be a long shot for this year’s show to come in above the 2003 figure, even with population increases.

In other words, this could be the lowest-rated show of recent decades. The telecast, stripped down, even short, bore marks in tone and quality of the effects of the writer’s strike, which gave the presenters a limited time to put a show together. But even that can’t excuse the lack of a substantive tribute to Ingmar Bergman. What in the hell is wrong with them?

Jon Stewart should have come out with guns blazing; couldn’t his writers come up with ten good jokes in a week? Instead, he was subdued, pressing on somewhat wanly after his opening few lines went nowhere. While the Academy can attribute the low ratings to the dismal mood of Hollywood post-strike, it’s also true that someone wasn’t trying very hard.

The quality of the show is an issue distinct from the ratings, however. That’s the Academy’s big problem. What’s going to happen if the membership continues its trend of honoring quality movies, which will inevitably be smaller-grossing films? As I wrote earlier this year:

That all goes double for the overseas audience the academy whimsically describes as “one billion viewers around the globe.” This has big implications for the Academy’s prestige and influence in general and the money it makes off the broadcast in particular. For the next few years, the behind-the-scenes discussions in the academy are going to be about how to continue to make a lot of money off the TV broadcast of a ceremony designed to showcase the decisions of a membership that, peskily, can’t be counted on to make the right decisions for the ratings.

On the other hand, what’s the Academy supposed to do? Nominate  “Alvin and the Chipmuks” for something? “Wild Hogs”? “Beowulf,” to cite just three of the film’s that outgrossed all of the major nominees save “Juno”?

Now, that would be an Oscarcast! (”Who’s going to win Best Actor Too Young to Be Packing Such a Paunch? Vince Vaughn in ‘Fred Claus’ or Adam Sandler in ‘I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry’? I can’t wait for the show!”) Accordingly, A.O Scott’s NYT gripe fest about the Oscars was confused and odd. One the one hand, he was upset that “Lust, Caution” and “3:10 to Yuma” (!?) didn’t get more nominations. Then he turns around and says, now that the Oscars are beginning to recognize good films, the process isn’t populist enough:

Connoisseurs may be satisfied with this arrangement—we can watch the broadcast without superciliousness or slumming—but a showbiz populist might complain that, in honoring the products of the studio specialty divisions, the academy has lost touch with the mass audience.

It’s hard to see how this is the Academy’s fault. The pictures didn’t get small; the audience did.