Former President Donald Trump blasted the 2021 Oscars ceremony Tuesday, claiming ratings will “only get worse” if Hollywood continues using the show to promote liberal ideologies.
The nationally televised ceremony “had the lowest Television Ratings in recorded history, even much lower than last year, which set another record low,” Trump said in a statement.
“If they keep with the current ridiculous formula, it will only get worse — if that’s possible,” the former president said.
“These television people spend all their time thinking about how to promote the Democrat Party, which is destroying our Country, and cancel Conservatives and Republicans.
“That formula certainly hasn’t worked very well for The Academy!” Trump concluded.
The iconic awards show experienced a 58.3 percent ratings drop from last year, based on Nielsen Live+Same Day preliminary national numbers, according to Variety.
Previously, the lowest total viewership for any Oscars was 23.6 million in 2020.
This year, fewer than 10 million people — 9.85 million to be exact — tuned in.
According to fast national ratings, the drop among viewers between the ages of 18 and 49 was 64.2 percent.
The show has seen a significant rating decline in the 18-49 demographic in recent years, going from a 7.7 rating in 2019 to 5.3 in 2020 to Sunday’s 1.9.
Dominic Patten, writing for Deadline, said the ratings were no surprise.
“Coming off years of declining results in general, plus the last several months of little-watched virtual awards shows, theaters closed due to the coronavirus pandemic and a slate of Oscar nominees that lacked big name recognition, the Disney-owned network and [the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences] long have known they were in for a drubbing,” he wrote.
“It was only a matter of how bad things were going to be, not if they were going to be bad — and it was bad.”
Speeches embraced an anti-police theme.
Travon Free, one director of “Two Distant Strangers,” lashed out at the police when he accepted the Oscar for the best live-action short film.
“Today the police will kill three people and tomorrow the police will kill three people, and the day after that the police will kill three people because on average the police in America every day kill three people,” Free said.
“Those people have been disproportionately black people,” he added, according to Fox News.
The Daily Wire reported, “Prior to the show, producers for the Oscars admitted that politics undoubtedly pushes people to tune out.”
The report added, “None of that stopped people from airing their political opinions on stage, most of which focused on police brutality and racial equality.”
The Oscars did include some touching moments. Tyler Perry, for instance, spoke against hatred.
“My mother taught me to refuse hate,” he said.
“She taught me to refuse blanket judgment, and in this time, and with all of the internet and social media and algorithms and everything that wants us to think a certain way, the 24-hour news cycle, it is my hope that all of us, would teach our kids, and I want to remember, just refuse hate,” Perry added.
via westernjournal