More than 36 million U.S. viewers watched Sunday's song-and-dance Oscars on television, lifting the glitzy film awards show from record low ratings in 2008, according to national ratings figures on Monday. The three and one-half hour broadcast on ABC saw “Slumdog Millionaire” triumph with eight Oscars in a show given a new twist by Australian host Hugh Jackman. The telecast drew 36.3 million U.S. viewers, up about 13 percent from the record low audience of 32 million in 2008, according to audience tracker Nielsen Media Research. But while the Academy Awards show still ranks as the year's highest-rated entertainment spectacle on TV, and a cash cow for Walt Disney Co.'s ABC, Sunday's figures reflected the gradual drop-off in American TV audiences in general, as well as Oscar watchers, over the past 10 years. TV critics were lukewarm about the Oscar show. Tom Shales in The Washington Post said Jackman was a “versatile and energetic talent” but called his opening medley of songs on the best picture nominees “pointless and flat.” Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein savaged the telecast. “I'm beginning to believe that saving the Oscars is a job for Iron Man or Hancock, a kick-ass superhero with the kind of unassailable powers that would allow them to radically overhaul what has become the year's stodgiest awards fest.”
