The Political Page, T+5 -- March 5, 2018

The top cable cable news shows for February, 2018: this is a watershed report considering all this going on. Two takeaways:

• Rachel Madcow dropped to 3rd place in the "demo period" after being #1 in the prior period
• Fox & Friends (6 – 9 a.m.) marked 196 straight months as the most-watched morning show on cable news.

March 5, 2018, T+5: Oscars rating down 19% from 2017, may plumb all-time low! Early numbers suggest an 18.9 overnight rating from 8-11 p.m. ET, down 16% Y/Y. Last year's Oscars earned a 22.4 and drew 32.9M viewers, second-lowest total ever (though today's overnights don't yet reflect the end of the show with the biggest awards). An 18.9 rating suggests a viewership of 28 million. [Later: yup. An all-time low -- 26.5 million. Wow.]The 2008 show's 31.8M viewers drew the lowest viewership. Full numbers come from Nielsen later on. March 5th deadline for "Dreamers": six months ago, Trump set March 5th as the deadline -- and the Democrats? Nowhere to be found. Not interested in solving the problem.

From the linked article:

The telecast, nearly four hours long, stumbled 19 percent from the previous year to 26.5 million viewers. That's easily the least-watched Oscars in history, trailing 2008 by more than 5 million.  Overnight returns had the lengthy ABC telecast averaging a 18.9 rating among households between 8 and 11 p.m. ET. Compared to the same stat for 2017, the night the wrong best picture winner was named, that was down a more modest 16 percent. 

The 2017 Academy Awards, which earned a 22.4 overnight rating, ultimately fetched 32.9 million viewers for ABC — as well as a handsome 9.1 rating among adults 18-49. Still, those numbers reflected the second-lowest in Academy history. (ABC did not immediately report the adults 18-49 rating for Sunday's Oscars, and Nielsen won't widely distribute that information until Tuesday.) 

The night was not as political as many recent award shows, with showings of partisanship few and far between. [But the damage was already done. Like NFL football games, the anticipation of the event outdoes the event itself.]

Ten top reasons why the Oscars crashed and burned:

10. Very few A-list actors actually bothered to attend
9.  Families no longer dare watch (as families): parents never know when PG will go to R (or worse)
8. Quick! Name three of the best movies nominated
7. Best actress nominee likely to win: her character, non-stop x-rated language
6. Meryl Streep
5. Meryl Streep
4. #MeToo -- that's not why we tune in
3. Way too political; Trump now has 49 - 50% approval ratings; half the audience that might have tuned in, tuned out
2. Kimmel: can see him every night on late night television
1. Kimmel: no pizzazz (think Billy Crystal)