Oscars 2014 watched by 43 million viewers in US

This year’s Oscars ceremony, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres, was watched by 43 million TV viewers in the US.

According to broadcaster ABC, it was the biggest audience for the Academy Awards in a decade.

The audience was 6.4% bigger than last year when the event was fronted by Seth McFarlane, according to ratings figures from Nielsen.

The most recent biggest TV audience was 43.6 million in 2004, when The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King cleaned up.

The most watched Oscars ceremony on television came in 1998, when the triumph of Titanic with 11 Academy awards was seen by 55.3 million viewers.

Last year’s choice of irreverent host Seth McFarlane drew criticism from some quarters. Ellen DeGeneres – hosting the event for the second time – was seen as a safer pair of hands.

Ellen DeGeneres received mixed reviews for this year’s ceremony, but her tenure was seen as a step away from recent attempts to draw in younger audiences.

Despite this, data from ratings trackers Nielsen suggested that there was an increase of 1% in the 18 to 34-year-old audience bracket.

Regardless of the critics’ views, Ellen DeGeneres’ staged a “selfie” photograph with several of the stars in the audience which was a hit on social media, setting the record for the most re-tweets on Twitter – more than two million.

Ellen Degeneres declared she wanted to break the record for the most re-tweeted photograph in history, featuring herself surrounded by the front row talent – and best supporting actress winner Lupita Nyong’o’s brother.

She broke the record within the hour, and in doing so, broke Twitter’s servers too.

Twitter said that 14.7 million Oscar-related tweets were sent worldwide during the telecast.