Oscar Gets Best Ratings in 10 Years

The Academy Awards telecast Monday night garnered its best television ratings since 1983, ABC reported Tuesday. The network estimated that 75 million people watched at least part of the broadcast.

Despite running 3 hours and 33 minutes--only 12 minutes shy of the record-length 1984 ceremonies--the 65th annual Oscar show earned a 31.2 Nielsen rating (each point represents 931,000 households), representing 51% of the people watching TV at the time.

That was a 5% improvement over the 29.8 rating last year--which was the third highest rated program of 1992--and the best since the 38 rating posted by the 1983 telecast, when “Gandhi” was named best picture.