More people tuned in to watch the Oscars than any of the 2020 Democratic primary debates. However, the annual award show still saw its smallest audience yet.
The 92nd Academy Awards, which featured special performances from Eminem, Billie Eilish, and Janelle Monae, had an average audience of 23.6 million total viewers on Sunday night, according to Nielsen’s live and same-day fast national program ratings. The audience size broke the previous low of 26.5 million viewers in 2018.
The event came in as the most-watched entertainment television special since last year’s Oscars despite losing 6 million viewers from 2019 to 2020. Comparatively, the most watched presidential debate was the first night of the first two-day debate, which registered 18.1 million viewers and was broadcast on NBC, MSNBC, and Telemundo.
More than one of this election cycle’s Democratic primary debates saw less than half the audience of Sunday’s award show. The most recent presidential debate, which aired on ABC News last Friday, had approximately one-third of the Oscars audience size, with only 7.9 million people tuning in, Deadline reported.
The Oscars also got approximately 5 million more viewers than both the Golden Globes and the Grammy Awards last month.
