I'm not the biggest fan of awards' ceremonies in general but my main thoughts about this year's ceremony - which I watched bits of earlier today, with a fair amount of fast-forwarding because it's three hours...
1. Ratings of this year's awards must for the most part reflect the films - or lack of recognisable films - that were released and thus nominated. Anything with any significant audience expectations, even awards fare, got delayed (e.g. In the Heights). You wouldn't expect an awards ceremony for essentially independent films to do that well, and it didn't. 2. I don't think you can blame anything on the format. Sure, it was low key and different, but I suspect that relatively few viewers turned on, and then turned off again in disgust a little later. If ratings were down catastrophically, then people just didn't tune in at all. See point 1. 3. That all said, the film industry has changed, and tentpole films are rarely the "best" films on any kind of reasonable criteria. The kinds of stories that used to win Oscars are now more likely to be found on television. (Much as I actually really liked Promising Young Woman, the BBC/HBO I May Destroy You, was much better treating similar themes). That horse has well and truly bolted new, and I can't see how things will change allowing the Academy to award "good" and "popular" films at the same time, beyond a handful. Who knows where this leave the Oscars going forward, but the real question probably needs to be where things leave *cinema* itself in the future. It's far too soon to really know how many actual theatres will survive, and like our working practices in the future, our film-viewing is likely to change. I love going to a big loud spectacular film and watching it with hundreds of others. But clicking a few buttons on my TV's remote is also good. Although the latter does require self-discipline to keep off my phone/tablet/laptop. Adam On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 12:29 AM 'David Bruggeman' via TVorNotTV < tvornottv@googlegroups.com> wrote: > While they may not have the $$$ to compare with the networks, this seems > like something E! would love to take on. > > David > > On Monday, April 26, 2021, 3:41:24 PM PDT, Kevin M. < > drunkbastar...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I can only liken it to the decline of beauty pageants; what once were the > talk of the water-cooler, big rated, hyped, and dirt cheap to produce, pop > culture has reduced them to the nothings they deserve to be. Eventually, > the constant stream of bad press and public criticism is going to force the > networks to end the practice of televising the reading of names followed by > the patting on the backs of those names. There’s no merit to it, and it > only feeds the very ego-driven machine that both the right and the left are > sick of. > > Banish them to cable, of better still create an all awards show streaming > app so we can genuinely see how many (or how few) care enough to fork over > money to watch them. > > On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 3:31 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote: > > That seems unlikely, at least re Oscars, which even with a 58% drop in > ratings would be the highest rated show on most any day of a regular week. > > What will almost certainly change, for Oscar and other main Awards shows, > is the magnitude of the revenue stream they provide. If the Academy one > year soon has a 30%-40% reduction in its income, that may change a lot of > things. > > As someone who likes the Oscars (not other award shows so much), what > would please me is if the drop in revenue deflated much of the bloated > production values of the usual ceremony, and brought it back to what it > really always has been, and was to a large extent last night. > > On Mon, 26 Apr 2021 at 2:45 PM Kevin M. <drunkbastar...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I hesitate to make light of Covid, but it would certainly be an upside to > the pandemic if one of the end results was an end to televised award > ceremonies. > > On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 2:06 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Looks like the LAT was right (and my optimistic prediction wrong) - Oscar > ratings down 58%, in the single digits (9.85M vs 23.6M last year). This > worse that the Grammys, but (slightly) better than the Golden Globes. > > If next year ratings return to their pre COVID declining trend, we would > expect them to rebound to around 20M, or twice last night. That does seem > optimistic, as it is hard to turn back the clock on viewing habits. > > > > > https://deadline.com/2021/04/2021-0scars-tv-ratings-academy-awards-low-abc-disney-1234744135/ > > On Sun, 18 Apr 2021 at 7:40 AM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > The Grammys and Golden Globes saw ratings fall 53% and 60%. Oscar ratings > fell about as much (44%) from 2014 through 2020. 23.6 million people > watched Parasite win Best Picture last year. > > So, the guessing game is, will Oscar ratings drop as much as the other > award shows, and will that set a new normal? > > My prediction is that ratings will be down at levels close to the others, > but somewhat less, both because it’s the Oscars, and things are starting to > open up. I am going with -37%, or about 14.8 Million viewers. I suspect > the Academy and ABC would be happy with that rather optimistic prediction; > the linked LAT story contemplates viewers in the single digit millions. > > > > > https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/18/business/media/academy-awards-tv-ratings-audience.html?referringSource=articleShare > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/636714490.514529.1619479793184%40mail.yahoo.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/636714490.514529.1619479793184%40mail.yahoo.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. 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