Nielsen estimates the Academy Awards telecast attracted about a fifth fewer viewers than last year. The dip's been blamed on the bleakness of contenders such as the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men, and the short buildup to the awards ceremony: it wasn't even clear until a couple of weeks ago that the show would be going ahead. Last night's disappointing television ratings shouldn't have been a surprise: a chart of user searches for "Oscars" on Google shows that the January blip, when nominations are announced, was less than half the average of the previous four years (see point F on the chart). The spike for Oscars night, which will take a day or two to show on this Google Trends chart, will be similarly unimpressive.