DEGENERES AND OSCARS FINALLY BEAT WALKING DEAD

For once, The Walking Dead was unable to walk all over its much-touted competition. After scoring ratings victories against the Winter Olympics among the 18-49 age group last month and beating both Sunday Night Football and the World Series last fall, the AMC series had to settle for second place against the Oscars Sunday night. Final figures showed that the Oscars recorded a 13.1 average rating, while the Dead earned a 6.4 in the demo. In addition, Nielsen’s final ratings, released today (Tuesday), put ABC’s Oscars audience at 43.74 million viewers, the largest non-sports audience since the series finale of Friends on May 6, 2004 and the largest for an Oscars telecast since 2000. By contrast, the Golden Globe Awards, which also hit a ten-year high this year, drew 20.9 million viewers and the Grammy Awards in January, 28.5 million viewers.