LOS ANGELES — In the end, it was the audience that got snubbed.
Following the best picture win on Sunday night by “Birdman” — a brainy film seen by fewer than five million ticket buyers in North America — the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences woke on Monday to soft television ratings for its Oscar telecast and fresh signs that its movie awards have become hopelessly detached from movie viewers.
According to Nielsen data, the Oscar broadcast on ABC drew about 36.6 million viewers, down 14.9 percent from roughly 43 million last year. It was the lowest-rated show since 2009, which had about 36.3 million viewers for a ceremony hosted by Hugh Jackman, with “Slumdog Millionaire” in the winner’s circle.
Going into Sunday’s show, the headlines were about the dearth of racial diversity among acting nominees. That gave Neil Patrick Harris, the ceremony’s eager, if ultimately ineffective, host, his first joke of the night, as he opened what he called a celebration of “the best and the whitest — sorry, brightest.”
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As the ratings demonstrated, the audience was not impressed. Perhaps they went to the movies instead: Box-office analysts noted that ticket sales on Sunday, normally a slow day at theaters, were unusually brisk.
A version of this article appears in print on February 24, 2015, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Moviegoers and Academy Move Further Apart . Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
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