The Oscar Winner

Perhaps LA Times critic Mary McNamara was correct when she said that this year’s Oscar telecast “defined new standards in dullness.” But if that’s the case people stuck around to watch anyway as ABC saw a 2% rise in viewership with 40.3 million tuning in.

More specifically, the 18 – 49 demographic was up 11% and was probably a key metric for the network who switched hosting duties to Seth MacFarlane this year.

For social chatter, the Oscars fell far behind both the Super Bowl and the Grammy Awards with 8.9 million total tweets compared to 24 million and 14 million, respectively.

A single ad placement during the Oscars went for $1.6 million — $1.8 million making it the second most expensive advertising opportunity on the market. Samsung, Hyundai, Diet Coke and Apple all had spots in the line up.

Besides Shirley Bassey’s amazing performance of ‘Goldfinger,’ which nearly matched the awesome original from five decades ago, talk of the big surprise winner around this office was J.C. Penney whose “Yours Truly” campaign might have finally found its audience.