Sunday's Oscars don't rate

Take small box-office grosses for four out of five best picture nominees, subtract one Golden Globes ceremony and multiply by a protracted writers' strike and you get pretty sucky ratings for Sunday's Oscars.
Preliminary metered-market ratings released by ABC say the show hosted by Jon Stewart averaged a 21.9 household rating and 33 percent share. Must do some more research to determine whether that's a record low. But it isn't looking good. Even in 2003, when the just-started war in Iraq meant more important live-event coverage on CNN, the Academy Awards averaged a 25.5 rating and 37 share.
Even more ominous news comes later in the network's release: L.A. ranked fifth among the top-rated markets for Oscar viewership, behind New York, Chicago, San Francisco and West Palm. I guess that means that Donald Trump's Florida neighborhood is more of an industry town than L.A. is these days.