The Emmys broadcast last Sunday on NBC attracted 13.5 million viewers, making it the largest non-sports audience so far in 2010, at least since the airing of FOX’s American Idol finale on May 26. This is also the largest audience the Emmys has had in four years but it’s still over a quarter less than what the awards attracted 10 years ago.

The Oscars also had a similar ratings rebound this year, garnering the highest ratings since 2005. The Oscars are also off their ratings highs of 50+ million viewers (achieved in 1983 and 1998), but althought they’re down the Oscars haven’t lost as much audience percentagewise as the Emmys.

In any case as far as viewership these television events pale in comparison to major sporting events. This year the Superbowl attracted a record audience of 106.5 million, well over double the audience of the Oscars and close to ten times that of the Emmys. Incidentally the World Cup Final had only 24.3 million viewers, which places it in third place behind the Oscars.

During my last posting I took a look at the audience levels for the Academy Awards since 1974. Since I had the data handy I decided to compare the viewing trends to the Superbowl.

It’s fascinating to see how the audience levels have diverged. Although slightly more popular in 1974, the Superbowl now attracts more than double the audience of the Oscars. Perhaps this is a reflection of the diminishing value of the Oscars, now that there are more opportunities now to see celebrities and movie stars, be it through other awards telecasts, multiple magazines, specialty cable channels and hundreds of web sites.

I was also interested in comparing the relative ad pricing between the two events, especially since it was recently reported in Mediapost that there has been some discounting and special packages offered for advertising in this year’s Oscars. Comparing the ad prices between the two events since 1983, the CPM per household was relatively similar until the last three years.

Last year a 30-second national spot in the Oscars cost $1.8 million and had an effective CPM of approximately $86. This year the prices for a national spot have dropped to $1.4 million. If the broadcast maintains the same ratings, it will have an effective CPM of $66, 23% lower than last year but still higher than the mid 50′s CPM for the Superbowl. Perhaps certain clients will opt to pay more for certain female or upper-income segments that more commonly tune into the Oscars rather than the Superbowl.

UPDATE: The Oscars averaged 36.3 million viewers, well above my predicition and much higher than the audience of 32 million last year. More on this later.

I recently saw this posting on TV By the Numbers regarding the historical ratings of the Oscars. Much has been made over how the event’s ratings are tied to how popular the nominated movies are so I decided to take a closer look. Since TV By the Numbers had the ratings information for all the Academy Awards broadcasts between 1974 and 2008, I compiled out the domestic grosses for all the Best Picture nominees for all those years and then compared the two sets.

The peak for 1974 is not completely accurate since the domestic figures for the two nominees, A Touch of Class and Cries and Whispers, are not available. Still, what is apparent from the chart is that the Oscar ratings do rise and fall somewhat with the best picture nominees’ gross. Looking at the results, I noted the following:

Average gross, 1974-2008: $85.1 million
Average audience, 1974-2008: 43.02 million viewers
Peak average gross: $199.5 million (1998)
Peak audience: 55.2 million viewers (1998)

I also calculated some ratios based on the relationship between viewers and the average gross.

Ratio 1 (1974-2008): 0.59
Ratio 2 (gross<$85 million, 2000-2008): 0.61
Ratio 3 (2008): 0.45

I then tried to figure out what size audience this year’s Oscars would have based on these parameters. This year the Best Picture nominees are currently running a below-average gross of $54.7 million.

Current total U.S. Box Office Gross for 2009 Oscar Best Picture Nominees
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: $122.6 million
Frost/Nixon: $16.6 million
Milk: $26.7 million
The Reader: $19.6 million
Slumdog Millionaire: $88.1 million

However, this average will rise since the movies haven’t finished their box office run yet. This is especially relevant for the finally tallies of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire whose totals I believe will respectively approximate $150 and $100 million. This would render an average nominee gross of around $61 million. Based upon a ratio#2 of 0.61 this year’s Oscars would yield approximately 33 million viewers. However, since the ratings have been dropping over the past few years, and last year’s ratio was only 0.45, I would substitute this ratio to predict this year’s audience will be around 28 million.