drew about 19.7 million viewers, marking a five-year high in total viewers and rating among adults age 18-49, according to Disney.
Nielsen, which tallies ratings, initially reported that about 18.1 million people had tuned into this year’s ABC telecast, which would have indicated a 7% dip from the 19.5 million people who tuned in last year.
However, by Tuesday, the numbers were recalculated to include the “dramatic growth with younger viewers from mobile and PC viewings,” according to Disney. About 1.65 million of viewers were watching on digital devices.
Sunday’s ceremony, led by former late night host Conan O’Brien, packed plenty of star power, with a “Wicked” performance from Oscar nominees Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, and a musical tribute to the late Quincy Jones from Queen Latifah.
The film academy slated an earlier start time for the show of 7 p.m. ET., with the goal of having it wrap up by around 10:30 p.m. ET.
O’Brien had even poked fun about the Oscars’ always running late after delivering his monologue, singing “I won’t waste time.”
But the show ended up lasting nearly four hours, ending closer to 11 p.m. ET.
This year was marked the first time the ceremony was simultaneously available to stream while airing live.
Some viewers while trying to stream. Moments before the final awards were announced, some viewers online shared images of their screens, which showed the message: “This live event has now ended”
Earlier in the evening, some had also said they encountered issues when they tried to log in to the Hulu app. In response to the initial glitch, a representative for Disney apologized “for the inconvenience” and said it had “identified the issue and impacted users should be able to log back in soon.”
