Twitter Users Say Cirque du Soleil Stole Oscars Broadcast

Viewers sent 2.05 million tweets about last night’s Academy Awards presentation, but non-viewers may surprised to see that the most-tweeted moment had nothing to do with any of the films that had been nominated. Meanwhile, none of the three big awards – best film, best actor and best actress awards – managed to make the top three most tweeted moments of the three-hour broadcast, according to Twitter analytics service TweetReach.

Viewers were far more enthralled with the Cirque du Soleil performance, which generated the night’s biggest spike in traffic, registering 18,718 tweets in one minute, according to Jenn Deering of Davis. That’s up from 2011, when the biggest spike was 11,780 tweets in a minute and the entire broadcast registered 1.27 million mentions on Twitter.

“It’s really important for us to follow live events like the Oscars as they happen, and allow the audience to follow along in real time with us,” Davis said. “Unlike a static infographic, interactive visualizations like this one – where we can see and interact with the data – tell us a lot more about what’s happening on screen, what the audience thinks about what’s happening, and what they like and don’t like.”

Chart shows Twitter mentions during last night’s broadcast of the Academy Awards. Click here for an interactive version showing when tweets were posted about nominees in six of the main categories, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress.

According to TweetReach, the 10 most tweeted about moments in last night’s broadcast were:

1. The Cirque du Soleil performance.
2. Octavia Spencer wins Best Supporting Actress for her role in “The Help.”
3. “Hugo” wins for Best Visual Effects.
4. Meryl Streep wins Best Actress for “The Iron Lady.”
5. The Artist wins “Best Picture.”
6. Zach Galifianakis and Will Ferrell present Best Original Song award to Bret McKenzie for “The Muppets.”
7. Christopher Plummer wins Best Supporting Actor.
8. Jennifer Lopez and her possible wardrobe malfunction. “Twitter seems to think it was not a shadow,” Davis said.
9. Jean Dujardin wins Best Actor for “The Artist.”
10. Angelina Jolie presents Best Adapted Screenplay to “The Descendants.”

Photo courtesy of ShutterStock.