The Academy Awards, in their 95th year, provided us with another magnificent spectacle last Sunday. This year’s telecast saw a 12% increase in viewership, putting the Oscars 2023 at 18.7 million viewers and on track to recoup some of the audience lost over the last decade.

However, knowing how many people watched the show is only one piece of the puzzle. It’s critical to understand whether the show was successful in engaging viewers and keeping them focused on the content. We were once again ready to track and analyze this year’s show and understand what emotional impact the 2023 Academy Awards had on their viewers, as MindProber has done with media events around the world.

Oscars 2023 Emotional Impact Score

The 95th Academy Awards had an Emotional Impact Score (EIS) of 535, which is 2% higher than the average of all MindProber sessions*. It did, however, fall short of the average for Awards Show telecasts, scoring less than 9% of the norm.

Even when compared to last year’s show, the Oscars 2023 had a lower emotional impact, scoring 5% lower on Overall EIS, 6% lower on Content EIS, and 9% lower on Advertising EIS.

2023 Academy Awards Top Moments

Does this imply that the Oscars of 2023 was not a memorable television event? No. The ABC Telecast was an entertaining show that scored higher than our average across all sessions. In fact, it had some of the most emotionally impactful moments we’ve ever recorded on an entertainment show, including one of the top peak emotional moments we’ve ever recorded on an entertainment show.

We registered a peak emotion of 1454 EIS when Brendan Fraser was announced as the winner of “Best Actor in a Leading Role” for his performance in “The Whale,” surpassing both Will Smith’s slap at last year’s show and Chris Rock’s jokes about the incident in his new stand-up show. Fraser’s announcement had an EIS of 977, which was 83% higher than the show’s average, making it the most impactful moment of this year’s broadcast.

But there were more emotionally engaging moments throughout the show, from Ke Huy Quan’s Best Actor in a Supporting Role win to Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue. We compiled a list of the seven most impactful moments of the show, as measured by our EIS standard.

Conclusion

While the Oscars 2023 broadcast wasn’t as emotionally engaging overall as last year’s, it certainly wasn’t lacking in high-impact emotional moments, with Brendan Fraser’s successful return to the big screen at the top.

On the whole, the Academy Awards showed once again that they provide solid television entertainment, and continue to be a staple of the media industry.

* MindProber sessions include sports, scripted and unscripted shows, as well as other awards shows