Will Smith鈥檚 violent slap of Chris Rock at the Academy Awards appeared to have a negligible impact on the show鈥檚 television audience. But the world of social media is a much different story.

ABC said there were some 22.7 million social media interactions during Sunday鈥檚 ceremony 鈥� the most ever for an Oscars telecast and more than double the 9.5 million recorded from last year鈥檚 show.

What do you suppose everyone was tweeting or posting about?

The network says Oscar videos notched 16 million views on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, also a record for the show. ABC does not have any details about what video clips were most popular, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

The telecast as a whole drew 16.6 million viewers, up 58% from the 2021 show that was dramatically scaled back due to the pandemic, the Nielsen company said. Yet this year鈥檚 show was down 30% from the more typical 2020 broadcast, which had been the second-smallest audience.

Nielsen measures viewership in 15-minute increments, and the 17.3 million viewers during the quarter-hour when Smith鈥檚 attack took place was virtually identical to the quarter-hour that followed.

Then the audience dipped to 16.8 million before rising to 17.4 million during the period Smith won his best actor award, Nielsen said.

Led by its NCAA men鈥檚 basketball tourney coverage, CBS won the week with an average of 6.2 million in prime time. Despite boasting the Oscars, ABC was second with 5 million. NBC had 2.28 million, Fox had 2.27 million, Univision had 1.5 million, Ion Television had 1.1 million and Telemundo had 960,000.

TBS, also boosted by the NCAAs, led the cable networks with an average of 2.81 million in prime time. Fox 亚洲天堂 Channel had 2.47 million, MSNBC had 1.12 million, HGTV had 1.11 million and CNN had 876,000.

ABC鈥檚 鈥淲orld 亚洲天堂 Tonight鈥� led the evening news ratings race with an average of 8.3 million viewers last week. NBC鈥檚 鈥淣ightly 亚洲天堂鈥� averaged 6.8 million and the 鈥淐BS Evening 亚洲天堂鈥� had 4.9 million.

For the week of March 21-27, the 20 most-watched programs in prime time, their networks and viewerships:

1. 鈥淭he Academy Awards,鈥� ABC, 16.62 million.

2. NCAA Men鈥檚 Basketball Tournament: Arkansas vs. Duke, TBS, 10.34 million

3. NCAA Men鈥檚 Basketball Tournament: St. Peter鈥檚 vs. Purdue, CBS, 10.18 million.

4. NCAA Men鈥檚 Basketball Tournament: North Carolina vs. UCLA, CBS, 8.82 million.

5. NCAA Men鈥檚 Basketball Tournament: Texas Tech vs. Duke, CBS, 8.23 million.

6. NCAA Men鈥檚 Basketball Tournament: Arkansas vs. Gonzaga, CBS, 8.16 million.

7. 鈥淣CAA Pregame鈥� (Saturday), TBS, 8.04 million.

8. 鈥淔BI,鈥� CBS, 8.02 million.

9. 鈥淣CAA Pregame鈥� (Thursday), CBS, 7.93 million.

10. 鈥淟ive From the Red Carpet鈥� (7:27 to 8 p.m.), ABC, 7.73 million.

11. 鈥淣CAA Pregame鈥� (Friday), CBS, 7.3 million.

12. 鈥�60 Minutes,鈥� CBS, 7.29 million.

13. NCAA Men鈥檚 Basketball Tournament: Houston vs. Villanova, TBS, 7.1 million.

14. 鈥淣CIS,鈥� CBS, 6.65 million.

15. 鈥淔BI: International,鈥� CBS, 6.11 million.

16. 鈥淔BI: Most Wanted,鈥� CBS, 5.79 million.

17. 鈥淭he Neighborhood,鈥� CBS, 5.72 million.

18. 鈥淟ive From the Red Carpet鈥� (6:58 to 7:27 p.m.), ABC, 5.45 million.

19. 鈥淏ob Hearts Abishola,鈥� CBS, 5.39 million.

20. 鈥淪urvivor,鈥� CBS, 5.35 million.

鈥擠avid Bauder, The Associated Press