Barbenheimer Gives the Oscars Some Much Needed Juice

The snubbing of box-office sensations has coincided with shrinking viewer numbers for the Oscars broadcast: Last year’s 18.7 million viewers in the US amounted to less than half the 40.4 million viewers who tuned in to the show in 2013. And even that was small beer compared with the more than 55 million viewers who saw Titanic sail away with the big prize in 1998. Since then, the declining number of visits to movie theaters, the proliferation of celebrities on social media and TV cord-cutting have all contributed to the Oscars’ shrinking audience.