spectacularly smacked down at this year’s ceremony by Best Actor winner Smith.ABC’s President of Entertainment Craig Erich told Deadline on Tuesday that he is open to having Rock, 57, helm the next awards show.
Erich also said next year’s show, which will be held in March, will be “even better.”The broadcast exec told the publication that he was happy with the ratings for this year, but the decision to have Rock host next year would likely increase viewership astronomically. “Obviously there was a lot of controversy [surrounding this year’s broadcast], which overshadowed a lot of the positive things about the show, but I was really happy with the program,” Erich stated. “It was the biggest bounce-back of any award show this season.”Ratings for this year’s broadcast were up a whopping 58%, garnering 16.6 million viewers.
Many people tuned in to the show after Smith, 53, slapped Rock after the comedian made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s alopecia.
However, Erwich insisted that viewer numbers were already up before the slap took place, stating: “Even before that very unfortunate moment, the show started off up year over year, and we came back in a big way.”The show was hosted by Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall, with the ABC boss asserting that trio delivered for the network.
Read more on nypost.com