The Oscars were a hit, sure — but what was Sunday’s No. 2 show?

March 15, 2023

The prime-time TV runner-up was less than a third of ABC’s Oscars audience.

The 95th Academy Awards brought in 18.755 million viewers for ABC, according to Nielsen’s official national ratings, which is far from high, but up 13 percent from last year. TV’s No. 2 show in primetime on Sunday brought in less than a third of that haul.

CBS’ “The Equalizer,” starring Queen Latifah, drew 5.599 million viewers Sunday at 8 p.m., according to Nielsen. That’s a pretty good average considering Jimmy Kimmel’s much-anticipated Oscar monologue was happening around the same time. Perhaps the best individual win – and speech – of the night was Ke Huy Quan’s supporting cast from “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” also in the first half hour.

It should be noted here that, technically, CBS had the stronger show in primetime on Sunday: “60 Minutes” reached 6.040 million total viewers at 7:00 p.m. While it’s still less than a third of the Oscars, we’re overlooking it over “The Equalizer” for a few reasons.

First and foremost, the Oscars didn’t start until 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT), so the long-running news magazine program only had a red — well, champagne — carpet to contend with. Second, Sunday is the only night of the weekend when 7 o’clock counts as national programming (and still not on all networks, such as The CW), and thus is part of Nielsen’s national primetime ratings. Third, it’s acceptable practice to separate news and sports from entertainment — all of these reasons combined to give “The Equalizer” a silver medal on Sunday.

“The Equalizer” episode 311, titled “Never Again,” deals with Harry’s (Adam Goldberg) search for the perpetrator of a series of local anti-Semitic hate crimes. In the AB storyline, McCall (Queen Latifah) tries to win custody of Delilah (Laya DeLeon Hayes). The episode was written by Ora Yashar and Adam Glass and directed by Chris Fisher.

This season, excluding news and sports, “The Equalizer” is the fifth-most-watched series on television, according to Nielsen Live + Same Day data, behind only CBS’ “FBI.” (1) “Young Sheldon” (2), “NCIS” (4) and NBC’s “Chicago Fire” (3). Along with a week of delayed viewing, “Equalizer” episodes slipped back to eighth place.

"Everything Everywhere At Once" seemingly won everything at the Oscars. Here's the Best Picture award

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” seemingly won everything at the Oscars. Here’s the Best Picture award

Getty Images

Of course, Sunday’s biggest winner was “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which won best picture and four other Oscars: best director and best original screenplay for writer-director duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, best actress Michelle Yeoh, best supporting actress. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis and Best Film Editing.

The full list of winners can be found here; IndieWire’s coverage of the 2023 Oscars can be found here.

The most-watched Oscars ever was in 1998, when “Titanic” won best picture in front of 55.2 million TV viewers. At the 2021 Oscars, when “Nomadland” won Best Picture, it had an all-time low of 10.5 million viewers.

“The Equalizer” Episode 312 airs this Sunday 8/7 on CBS. The series is available on demand on Paramount+.

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