Los Angeles (AFP)
The broadcast of the 92nd Academy Awards achieved the worst audience in its history on Sunday evening, in free fall compared to last year with only 23.6 million viewers claimed in the United States by the ABC chain.
In 2019, Oscars, the most prestigious film awards in Hollywood, had attracted 29.6 million viewers, after a historic low of 26.5 million the previous year.
The 2020 edition will certainly be remembered for having crowned the best film "Parasite", the first feature film in a language other than English to win this flagship award. But critics agree that the ceremony, more than three and a half hours long, was slow and will not be remembered.
For the second consecutive year, the evening had decided to do without a single master of ceremonies, hoping to repeat the success of 2019, but the performances of the stars who took turns on stage to deliver jokes and open the envelopes were generally disappointing.
The South Korean director Bong Joon-ho "avoided the ceremony to be among the worst in history" of the Oscars, writes the specialized site IndieWire. "Much of what was proposed during the Oscars 2020 simply did not work."
As for the musical numbers, between Randy Newman and Elton John, "they looked like all the Oscar parties you've seen in the last two or three decades," said the Washington Post.
The audience for the Oscars, which still exceeded 43 million in 2014, has not stopped dropping in recent years in the United States, like other awards evenings (Golden Globes, Grammy Awards, etc.).
The Oscars were again strongly criticized this year, many reproaching them for their lack of ethnic and cultural diversity in the nominations, as well as the absence of women in the category of directors. Some had even called on social networks to boycott the ceremony.
Of the 39 golden statuettes of the 2020 vintage, a third were still distributed to women.
© 2020 AFP