The 2023 Oscars are on track for an audience of 20 million after 7 days across multiple platforms

The 2023 Oscars attracted an additional million viewers in the week following the live broadcast.

According to ABC, the 95th annual Academy Awards drew an average total audience of 19.9 million viewers after seven days of viewing across linear and digital platforms. It also scored 4.43 in the key demographic of 18-49 year olds.

That’s 8% more than the 18.8 million viewers who tuned in live on March 12. This is the second year in a row that the Oscars audience has grown in the days following the live ceremony. While 8% may not seem like a huge jump, most live ceremonies attract little to no delayed viewers unless something big happens.

ABC also says that views of the Academy’s digital content from the 95th Oscars grew 359% year-over-year to 109.2 million, up from 23.8 million last year. The academy also gathered more than 760,000 new followers between January and March in the run-up to this year’s ceremony.

This year’s live audience was already a positive sign for the Oscars, with viewership growth of 13%. The program bottomed out in 2021 with only around 10.4 million viewers and has worked its way back up in the two years since. Although the pre-pandemic number is still not there, reaching almost 20 million this year is a sign that the show is headed in the right direction.

There are a number of reasons why viewership increased this year, including the addition of the two top-grossing films of 2022 (Avatar: The Way of Water And Top Gun: Maverick) in the race for best picture. The return of a veteran host like Jimmy Kimmel may also have had a positive impact on ratings.

But even before the pandemic, the Oscars had been steadily declining in terms of viewership. 2020’s 23.6 million was nothing special when viewership almost doubled just a few years earlier.