The Last Of Us’ ratings are so good that it might take a bite out of the Academy Awards' ratings
The Last Of Us' finale is airing against the Oscars, and there's a very tiny chance that it might get better ratings
It seems pretty unlikely, and it would require a perfect confluence of events—specifically “everyone wants to watch The Last Of Us” and “nobody wants to watch the Oscars—but there’s a small chance that HBO’s high-profile video game adaptation might get better ratings than the Academy Awards on Sunday. Again, it probably won’t happen… it’s silly to think that it could… but it miiiight.
The reason for this is that The Last Of Us has been trending upwards over the last few weeks, with Variety reporting that Warner Bros. Discovery says the most recent episode was the most-viewed so far, pulling in 8.1 million viewers on Sunday night (the previous record for the show was 7.5 million, which it got a few weeks ago). The show still has a lot of momentum behind it, and the general public seems to like each episode as much as the last, so who’s to say it won’t keep getting more viewers for episode nine on Sunday night? Plus, the next episode is the finale, and if any episode is going to be a ratings bonanza, it’s that one.
Meanwhile, the other thing airing this Sunday night is the Academy Awards, which—save for a small uptick last year—has been trending down, down, downwards. Last year’s Oscars got the second-lowest ratings for the show ever, 13.7 million, with 2021 being the (bad) record holder with 9.8 million. It stands to reason that this year’s event will end up in a similar place, and that’s without even taking into account anyone who would’ve watched the Oscars but chooses to stick their neck out and see what kind of fungus dudes are chasing Joel and Ellie that night.
And before you say “surely people want to see someone get slapped again,” we must point out that the 2018 Academy Awards, the one after they read the wrong Best Picture winner, got worse ratings than the previous year—meaning, the last time the Oscars had a big scandal during the show, it did not translate to more viewers tuning in the following year. The Oscars have already put together a “crisis team” to make sure nobody else gets slapped, which means nobody is getting slapped, which means… if you were hoping someone would get slapped, you should probably just watch The Last Of Us. There’s probably a better chance of them reading the wrong Best Picture winner again than someone getting slapped, but that’s also probably not a good reason to tune in.