Oscar ratings up 11% and up over 14% with the coveted 18-49 demo!

Good news for the Motion Picture Academy. Despite the fact that the five Best Picture nominees had combined to gross less than $300M domestic by showtime, Oscar ratings were up considerably from last year’s all-time low. Early numbers show that the ABC telecast scored a 27 share, surging by 11% overall and by over 14% with TV’s “money demo” 18-49s. Compare that to last year when the show was down 25% in households from 2007 and down 30% among 18-49s.

The credit should go to producers Lawrence Mark and Bill Condon, although I can see why the streamlined show is a bit of a Rorschach test for viewers. If you love movies, and especially actors, last night’s show was respectful and enlightening. If you are inclined to dislike awards shows and actors, then the telecast would be pretty dreary.

I loved the multi-presenter set-up for the four acting categories. Each nominee was treated as a winner with a past winner talking about what made their performance one of the year’s best. It was cool to see people like Sophia Loren, Robert DeNiro, Joel Grey, Eva Marie Saint and Ben Kingsley take part in the presentation of major awards. (I had the opportunity to interview Kingsley when Schindler’s List was released, and he is a student of acting. He described another actor’s performance as “letting the monster out of the box too soon,” and it stuck with me.)

As for Hugh Jackman as host, he was very different from the string of comedians we have seen in the job. He didn’t feel the need to riff on current events or politics, instead playing it as a fan, and the two musical numbers were hit-and-miss. I was really worried about the opening number until the Anne Hathaway as Nixon finale. It was a bit strained and a little desperate. The second number created by Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!) worked better with Beyonce, the High School Musical kids and the duo from Mamma Mia!.

Overall, in the modern post-Bob Hope, post-Johnny Carson era, I rank Jackman in the upper tier of those that have tried their hand at the impossible job. He’s well below Billy Crystal and Steve Martin, but much better than John Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg and Chris Rock. It’s apples and oranges really, because Jackman is so different.

As for the structure of the show, I enjoyed the layout of the broadcast from screenwriting to cinematography to post-production and music. One of the reasons the show came in at less than 3:30 is that presenters handled multiple categories. Steve Martin and Tina Fey were an inspired pairing. The same can be said for Natalie Portman with a Joaquin Phoenix-style Ben Stiller.

The two hilights of the show? First, there was Judd Apatow’s inspired mini-feature starring Seth Rogen and James Franco in their Pineapple Express characters, randomly recruiting two-time Oscar winning DP Janusz Kaminski to be part of the fun. Hilarious. The other high point was the way that the three Oscar nominated songs, winner Jai Ho and nominee O Saya from Slumdog and Peter Gabriel’s Down to Earth from WALL-E were blended together seamlessly with a mix of Indian dancers and African rhythms and John Legend stepping in on vocals for Gabriel.

Danny Boyle refrencing Tigger while accepting Best Director was nice. Kate Winslet was more put-together during her speech than she has been at previous awards stops, and Sean Penn was Sean Penn. “You Commie – homo-lovin’ sons of guns,” kind of says it all.

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.