Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Avatar, Taylor Lautner, Tom Cruise as Tom Cruise and as Les Grossman, teaser trailers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and The Last Airbender, Sandra Bullock kissing Scarlett Johansson, Betty White talking about her ovaries, Zac Efron, Bradley Cooper, Paris Hilton, Jennifer Lopez, Katy Perry, Cristina Aguilera, Aziz Ansari (singing a tribute to James Cameron’s Avatar), the Jersey Shore cast, Snoop Dogg, Peter Facinelli, and lots of expletives. Did all that translate into solid ratings or not?
Well, that depends on where and how you look at the figures. According to some reports, the 2010 MTV Movie Awards were watched by 16.4m people, an increase of 2% compared to last year. Others claim that ratings were down 13%. Who to believe?
James Hibberd provides some illuminating data at The Hollywood Reporter. Hibberd explains that despite strong competition from sports programming on other channels, on average the 2010 MTV Movie Awards were watched by 5.8m viewers on MTV, MTV2, and VH1 — or about the same number as last year. However, at MTV alone, the drop-off rate was 13%. That’s the figure being provided by some outlets.
Among female teens, largely thanks to The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the MTV Movie Awards scored the show’s best ratings since 2004. Among persons between the ages of 12-34, the ceremony averaged a 4.1 rating, the second best since 2004 according to Nikki Finke at Deadline.com.
Now, other outlets have been reporting that 16.4m viewers watched the MTV Movie Awards. Yet, that figure is supposed to represent the total number of people who watched at least a — one-minute — segment of the show on MTV, MTV2, and VH1. That’s indeed up 2% from last year.
Also, MTV has apologized for all the expletives used on the show. In my view, they should have apologized instead for all the offensive bleeps.