Seth MacFarlane and the Oscars proved to be a winning combination for ABC.
Sunday night’s Oscarcast, featuring newbie host MacFarlane, snared 40.3 million viewers, up 1 million viewers from last year’s telecast (hosted by Billy Crystal).
More importantly for ABC, the telecast was up 11 percent in adults 18-49 and was up a whopping 20 percent in adults 18-34 (a six-year high) — bringing in the valued younger audience craved by TV execs.
The spike in younger viewers was due in part to MacFarlane’s popularity vis-a-vis his animated Fox shows “Family Guy” and “American Dad.”
It was the most-watched Academy Awards ceremony since the 2010 Academy Awards pulled in 41.7 million viewers with hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.
And while Sunday’s Oscars might have only seemed very long to some, the ceremony clocked in at three hours and 35 minutes (8:30 p.m. to 12:05 a.m.) — relatively quick for a show that frequently drags on long past midnight.
To put that into perspective, compare it to the 2002 Oscar marathon, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg — which lasted an interminable four hours and 23 minutes — or the 2000 ceremony, hosted by Crystal, which lasted a little over four hours.
Sunday’s watercooler moment came when Jennifer Lawrence tripped while walking up to accept her Oscar for “Silver Linings Playbook.”