Rock's Short-term Upsurge Drops

As anticipated, Chris Rock's brief surge to a one percent viewership boost among major market Oscar-watchers dropped percipitously when the Red State stats came in. According to USA Today:

The 77th annual Academy Awards averaged 41.5 million viewers Sunday, a 5% drop from last year. And aside from the record-low turnout of 33 million in 2002, when musical Chicago won the best-picture Oscar, this year marked the least-watched Oscars since 1997, when the art-house film The English Patient took top honors.

Oddly, viewership among Rock's young-male fan base — always in shorter supply for the Oscars — actually fell from last year, though more young women watched.

Young male Chris Rock fans aren't attracted to the Oscars, so that wasn't too hard to call. The inability of ABC to find its bearings, indicative of all the major MSM as they grapple with the disparity between their beliefs and mainstream American beliefs, is evident in this quote from the USA Today article:

"I would've thought with Chris Rock there it would be just the opposite," ABC researcher Larry Hyams says. "That really surprised me."

How many of you did it surprise? How hard is this to get?

Of course, the fault isn't all with ABC and its choice of Rock as emcee. Most of the blame is squarely with Hollywood, for making movies that are out of touch and nominating movies that are out of touch. How smart it would have been for them to nominate both The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9-11 as "Best Movie." That would have upped viewership.