If you gave out an Oscar and there was no one there to hear it ...

It's official, according to the Hollywood Reporter: Sunday's Oscars telecast hit rock bottom in viewership.
ABC's publicity mill took more time than usual to release the fast-national results, probably because of the struggle they were having putting lipstick on this pig.
On the heels of early-morning metered market figures that did not bode well, the announcement late Monday proclaimed 64.13 million viewers ages 2+ across the country watched 6 minutes or more of the show. (Of course, at least some of those younger children in the 2+ universe probably sat through Robert Boyle's entire long-winded acceptance speech for his honorary award because they mistakenly thought they were watching home video of their great-grandfather.)
Having put a smear of lucious pink on some bacon on the hoof, ABC closes with this caveat:
"DVR penetration ... has nearly doubled from 13 percent at the same point in 2006, up to more than 22.5 percent currently. ... The only true valid year-to-year comparison would be one based on the Live +7 Day metric, once those stats are released by Nielsen."
Yes, I'll translate. ABC hopes that a lot of us who didn't tune in live on Sunday night will watch the whole bloody broadcast on our TiVos sometime this week, even though we know all the results and will have had plenty of time to watch the show's few compelling moments on the Internet. And ABC hopes that by next Monday, when those Live +7 Day figures surface, even the trades like Variety and Hollywood Reporter will no longer care.