Kimmel in Deep Denial Over Oscar Ratings

Jimmy Kimmel will get a third try this weekend to lure Oscar viewers back.

His first two attempts didn’t work out, ratings-wise, like the show’s producers hoped. The days when the Academy Awards gala drew 20, 30 or even 40 million viewers are long gone.

Could this time be different? Of course not. Even the far-Left “Jimmy Kimmel Live” host knows that to be true.

Kudos for honesty, but only select kudos.

Kimmel spoke to The Hollywood Reporter earlier this week about “The Slap” and Oscar-related duties he’ll have come Sunday. The interview avoided the obvious topics, including why so many former viewers loathe the show.

That might make for a meaty anecdote while challenging Kimmel, a late-night propagandist. Instead, they threw the former “Man Show” host the usual curveballs.

One THR question inspired a curious answer.

Much will be made about the ratings of the show. What are the expectations going in?

I don’t know, it’s not something that I have any control over. We’re excited that there are movies [nominated that] people have seen, so we’re hoping more people watch, but who the hell knows? There’s a lot of focus put on the ratings of these award shows and it’s used as a gauge in some ways, but it has almost nothing to do with the award shows themselves [emphasis added] and everything to do with television viewing habits in general.

Let’s cut Kimmel some slack.

The cultural landscape has changed, and viewers have many more options preventing them from enjoying the annual gala.

• State-of-the-art video games with compelling narratives
• Social media
• YouTubeStreaming platforms

It’s hard for any TV institution to mirror the ratings they earned decades ago – although the Super Bowl seems to do just that year in, year out.

That doesn’t explain everything, of course.

The Oscars gala, once mostly apolitical and brimming with glamour and laughs, is now an ideological slog that runs past the three-hour mark. How many good shows can keep us entertained for that long, let alone a virtue-signal fest like the Oscars?

Entertainment isn’t the purpose of the 21st-century ceremony. It’s about smiting Red State America, lecturing viewers on their so-called privilege and bemoaning social causes past and present.

It’s why “Everything Everywhere All at Once” star Michelle Yeoh shared an item on social media she thought would improve her chances of winning based on her skin color.

RELATED: THE BLAZING HYPOCRISY OF KIMMEL’S TRUMP ATTACKS

Kimmel’s job isn’t to entertain the masses. It’s to hit all the proper political cues, denounce both Hollywood and America as irredeemably racist and push other progressive tropes.

Who would sit through that kind of show voluntarily?

Kimmel mocked the show’s ratings in 2021 with this pithy comment:

“The ratings for the Oscars plummeted from 23 million last year to less than ten million this year,” Kimmel said. “How can something so woke put so many people to sleep?”

Of course, if Kimmel and the folks behind the Oscars ceremony actually reached out to disaffected viewers they might learn a thing or two. And, if they put modest changes into effect based on that feedback, the show’s ratings would rebound to a degree.

Except they’d rather not. And that’s why Kimmel’s response is both defensive and demonstrably false.