TV ratings: Oscars drop, 'Timeless' finale up

Oscars tarnished. ABC's 89th Academy Awards, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, set a near-record low of 32.9 million viewers Sunday, above only the 2008 ceremony (32 million), which came in the wake of a protracted Hollywood writers' strike. (Nielsen began measuring individual viewers in 1974).

Opening shots. NBC spinoff The Blacklist: Redemption arrived Thursday with a modest 4.3 million viewers, still holding onto most of its Blacklist lead-in (5 million). A&E's final-season premiere of Bates Motel notched 1.3 million, down from 1.5 million last March. USA's Chrisley Knows Best returned Tuesday with 2 million. And CMT's Sun Records opened with 971,000 Thursday.

So long. NBC's Timeless wrapped up its first season Monday with 3.4 million same-day viewers, an uptick from recent weeks, while the two-hour third-season finale of ABC's How to Get Away With Murder claimed a typical 4.9 million and Lifetime's Project Runway Junior closed out Thursday with 1.1 million.