Ellen DeGeneres’ gig hosting Sunday night’s Oscars received mixed reviews — but that didn’t stop Hollywood’s biggest awards show from snaring robust ratings.
Sunday night’s ceremony averaged 43 million viewers on ABC from 8:30 to 11:40 p.m.
That’s up 6 percent from last year — when Seth MacFarlane hosted — and marks the Oscars’ best viewership since Billy Crystal hosted in 2004, when nearly 44 million people tuned in.
It also marks TV’s most-watched entertainment telecast since a May 2004 episode of “Friends.”
Sunday night’s Oscars outdrew the Golden Globes on NBC by over 22 million viewers — while there were 11.2 million tweets with 2.8 million unique users, outpacing last year’s Oscars by 75 percent.
The telecast was also a big boon for “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
The ABC late-night outfit’s annual “After the Oscars” show snared a record 7 million viewers, up 22 percent from last year, with Kimmel welcoming two-time Oscar winner and “House of Cards” star Kevin Spacey.