The 'net is awash with criticisms of the Academy Awards telecast, the show so many people love to hate each year. The overall reaction was way better than expected and the ratings were up a tad from last year. I'd be curious to know if that was because more people tuned in or because more of those who did tune in stayed 'til the end.
Usually, the initial tune-in is indicative of how much people care about who wins and about how interested they are in what the host will do or say. This year, the latter was probably how interested they were in how the show would go without a host. But I do think interest in the actual awards is like 90% of it. (When this year's show started, by the way, my first thought which I almost Tweeted was that someone said, "Let's do it without a host and turn it into the Grammy Awards!" But before I could send that, Tina Fey and friends came out and it turned back into the Oscars.)
Anyway, the measure of how many people stay with it until the end is more a measure of how much they enjoyed the show. Whether the Academy and ABC try this format again may have something to do with that statistic.
Seems to me that even some of those who dumped on the ceremony had to dig deeper than usual to find things to bitch about. My friend Ken Levine took his annual snarky slam and halfway through it, I thought he was going to have to go after the uniforms on the valet car parkers to find things to insult.
As usual, a lot of people didn't like who won in some categories and they take it out on the telecast. Not having seen it, I have no idea if Green Book was deserving of Best Picture but I'll go out on a limb here and say it just might have gotten the most votes. A lot of those complaining about that seem to think the Academy should have done something to prevent such a travesty. I know how they feel. During the last presidential election, I thought CNN's coverage was atrocious, especially that part where they announced Donald Trump had won. They should have crowned Hillary instead. Since when do we let the actual votes get in the way of putting on a good show?