Hollywood’s biggest night has come and gone and Parasite, a South Korean film from Bong Joon-ho, was one of the big winners, taking home numerous accolades including Best Picture. Below, some viewership and advertising insights from ABC’s broadcast of the 92nd Academy Awards, from iSpot.tv and Inscape.
According to always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company iSpot.tv, there were 69 ad airings during the Oscars, and show sponsors largely saw the most air time during the event: Cadillac was on screen for four full minutes, while Verizon appeared for three and Rolex had two and a half minutes of commercial time. M&M’s and Quibi were the only other brand advertisers to appear for more than a minute during the Oscars.
According to iSpot’s Attention Index*, Norwegian Cruise Line owned the spot that was least likely to be interrupted with an Index of 160, meaning it received 60% fewer interruptions compared to the other ads during the Oscars broadcast. Other notable spots with high Attention Indices came from The New York Times (58% fewer interruptions) and Apple iPhone (56% fewer).
Quibi, the mobile streaming service from Jeffrey Katzenberg, continued its February ad blitz — after appearing during Super Bowl LIV, Quibi aired four different ads during the Oscars, all featuring a notable celebrity cameo: “Asteroid” (55% fewer interruptions), “Train Tracks” (30% fewer), “Oxygen” (10% fewer) and “Leave Me” (6% fewer).
According to Inscape.tv, the TV data company with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 12 million smart TVs, viewership of the Oscars rose during the first half, leveled off, and then slightly declined towards the end. Moments during some high points of viewership (occurring between 9:20-9:40 p.m. EST) included Laura Dern winning Best Supporting Actress for Marriage Story, Eminem’s performance of “Lose Yourself” and the presentation of the Oscar for Sound Editing, which went to Donald Sylvester for Ford v Ferrari.
Inscape also provided a look at where people were tuning in from during the evening: hotspots included the Palm Springs, California; West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce, Florida; Boston, Massachusetts; Los Angeles; and New York DMAs.
*iSpot Attention Index - Represents the Attention of a specific creative or program placement vs the average in its respective industry. The average is represented by a score of 100, and the total index range is from 0 through 200. For example, an attention index of 125 means that there are 25% fewer interrupted ad plays compared to the average.
