While Seth MacFarlane's Oscars hosting gig offended many, the "Family Guy" creator still managed to garner a whopping 40.3 million viewers during Sunday night's telecast — up 20 percent over last year in the all-important 18-49 rating, while gaining 3 percent in overall viewers.
While MacFarlane has since been touted "Oscars Ratings Gold," he says he will not resume the hosting role next year.
MacFarlane took to Twitter to announce his decision:
MacFarlane didn't elaborate, but he has been getting a lot of flak in the press after insulting everyone from Abraham Lincoln lovers to the female gender.
"Part of the interest in MacFarlane's presence was that it was so novel; an unguarded insult craftsman tasked with guiding his industry's most important and Respect-heavy evening," writes The Atlantic Wire's Richard Lawson. "The trick probably wouldn't have the same punch the second time around."
"But yes, with a ratings upgrade like this one, especially among advertisers' favorite people, we shouldn't expect to see Whoopi Goldberg or Steve Martin back on stage any time soon," Lawson elaborates.
Instead of older, safer hosting choices, names currently being tossed around to host the 2014 broadcast are this year's successful Golden Globes hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and late night talk show hosts, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel.
Tina Fey told the Huffington Post there's "no way" she would host next year's 86th annual Academy Awards, adding "I just feel like that gig is so hard. Especially for, like, a woman — the amount of months that would be spent trying on dresses alone."
Pressed as to whether there's "at least a one in a million chance," Fey assured there's not. "I wish I could tell you there was."
But the New York Post published a report on Friday saying their sources already know the frontrunner: "Jimmy Kimmel is already being lined up to host next year’s Oscars."
Kimmel's rep didn't respond to our email for comment, but according to the Post's sources, "Jimmy is favored to host the Oscars next year; ABC has been pushing him for the role."
The notion isn't a crazy one, as Kimmel, who hosted the Emmy Awards in 2012, received his best post-awards show ratings ever on Sunday night and "Jimmy Kimmel Live" airs on ABC — the network set to be home to the Oscars until 2020.
Jimmy Fallon, on the other hand, could be seen as a point of contention as his show, "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," airs on NBC and is now in a competing time slot against Kimmel on ABC.
Meanwhile, an ABC spokesperson said, "This is a decision for the Academy. No conversations have even started on that yet, and won't for some time."
But a source close to the situation tells Business Insider the Kimmel reports are "100 percent not true" and "a complete fabrication."
What people don't realize is that before any talks of who the next host will be can even commence, there's a list of things that need to first happen:
- First, the Academy elects a new president in the summer, most likely in July or August.
- Then, the new president hires the producers of the broadcast.
- The producers then go out and hire the host of the broadcast.
Last year, the Academy didn't even announce the host until October for February's show, so any reports of next year's host — less than a week after 2013's broadcast — are extremely premature.
And we're a ways away from 2014's 86th annual Academy Awards, as Vanity Fair points out, "with the Winter Olympics taking place from February 7 to February 23, the show will likely be postponed until March."
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