Three years ago, the Academy were desperate to save the ratings of the Oscars, which had been on a sharp decline for the previous decade. As such, then-Academy president John Bailey announced plans for a new category bizarrely dubbed Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film. The immediate ridicule for this vague new award was so severe, they dropped the idea just one month later.
That same year, the Academy also announced an equally misguided decision to present four awards during commercial breaks. Again, the uproarious backlash forced the Academy to back down on this idea, particularly after directors like Guillermo del Toro, Christopher Nolan, and Alfonso Cuarón expressed their disdain for the plans.
A defeated Bailey stated the concepts would be approached again in the future. To be honest, most of us presumed neither idea would ever see the light of day again. Ah, weren’t we wrong? With last year’s ratings standing as the worst of all time, we’re back to desperation levels to improve these figures.
Not only has the Academy introduced two publicly voted awards this year for “Fan Favorite” and “Most Cheer-Worthy Moment,” they’ve just revealed plans to exclude eight categories (Documentary (Short Subject), Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Music (Original Score), Production Design, Short Film (Animated), Short Film (Live Action), and Sound) from the live broadcast. The latter decision has rightly sent Film Twitter into a meltdown.
Academy president David Rubin has stated this decision is “in order to provide more time and opportunity for audience entertainment and engagement through comedy, musical numbers, film clip packages and movie tributes” in a bid “to increase viewer engagement and keep the show vital, kinetic, and relevant.”
Those eight categories will be presented one hour before the broadcast and then edited and “folded seamlessly into the live televised show.” Rubin stopped short of revealing how extensive that editing will be. However, we’ve seen this practice with the Tonys and the Grammys, who both have considerably more categories to award, thus justifying the need for such a broadcast style. They both barely give the winners’ speeches 10 seconds of airtime, so we should likely expect the same from the new-look Oscars.
I’m remaining hopeful the Academy will stream this one-hour ceremony on their social channels. You’re filming it for television anyway, so why not just broadcast it elsewhere? It would avoid the winners being spoiled by those in the auditorium and give loyal viewers a chance to see the presentations of these categories completely unedited as they once were. Please, Academy. We’re begging you.
Now, I know what you’re going to say; what’s with the backlash if these categories will still be included in the ceremony in some way? Sure, it’s true these awards aren’t being eliminated entirely or being presented in the commercial breaks like that baffling idea in 2019. But ponder this; by pushing those eight categories into a separate edited presentation, isn’t the Academy essentially sending a brutal message that the work of those artisans is not as valued?
I’m not stupid. I know the general public is far more vested in seeing big-name celebrities on the Oscars stage than the winner of Best Live Action Short Film. But since when is that what the Academy Awards are about? Do these awards not exist to honour the best achievements in all aspects of cinema from the previous 12 months? Yes, ratings are important. I get it. But television ratings aren’t what they were used to be. And they never will be.
Last year, barely nine million Americans tuned in to watch the Oscars. Back in the day, the figure was somewhere between 40-50 million. A big reason for such high viewership was there was simply nothing else on television that night. Sunday night was a big TV event in America. There were only a handful of television channels available to the average viewer without cable, and the other major networks rarely put anything significant up against the Academy Awards. We are not in that landscape anymore.
No matter how heavily the Academy trims the running time or introduces new stunts like viewer-decided categories, the ratings will not come back. With a plethora of streaming services at their disposal, audiences are spoilt for choice when deciding what to watch on a Sunday evening. It’s hardly surprising the Oscars are not at the top of their viewing list. And hearing eight categories have been dropped from the live broadcast is not going to change that.
Viewership for all awards shows has dropped considerably in the last five years. This isn’t a problem exclusive to the Oscars. Just over eight million people watched last year’s Grammys, and that’s despite having huge name performers like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, BTS, and Bruno Mars. If the Grammys can’t attract a large audience with the biggest names in the music industry essentially offering a free live concert, what hope do the Oscars have?
A lot of folks will say the Oscars don’t honour popular films as they did in the days of Titanic, Forrest Gump, Gladiator, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy and that’s what has driven viewers away. But the Grammys award the most popular music of the year and they’re still suffering ratings declines. In 2019, the Emmys had their second-worst ratings ever, and that was the year they awarded Outstanding Drama Series to Game of Thrones aka the most popular show on television. How do you explain their diminishing ratings with that same theory?
Look, I get why ABC is obviously only concerned with ratings. They pay an exorbitant figure (estimated to be $75 million) each year for the Oscars broadcast rights and they need viewership to sell advertising to recoup their money. This is a business to them and plummeting ratings question their investment. But if they truly think the answer to bringing viewers back is to cut an hour from the ceremony to make room for skits and montages, I believe they’re sorely mistaken.
ABC owns the rights for another six years, so we should probably expect all sorts of experimental changes still to come. Frankly, I doubt any of them will work and ratings will continue to decline. Perhaps once their contract is over, the Academy will need to rethink their broadcast strategy and move to a streaming platform where issues like ratings and advertising won’t play a factor in the ceremony itself.
There really isn’t an easy fix that will draw audiences back to a fancy awards ceremony they’ve clearly lost interest in. Times have changed and the Academy needs to accept that. The Oscars will always be the preeminent movie awards ceremony of the year, but perhaps we’re now in an age where only awards season fans and hardcore film lovers actually care. That’s why announcing decisions that enrage your core audience makes no flipping sense.
There is a dedicated fanbase who endlessly adore the Academy Awards. I’m one of them. And have been for three decades. Okay, we may not number in the tens of millions, but we still deserve to enjoy the ceremony we’ve loved for most of our lives. We’re not opposed to change, but it cannot come at the expense of the fundamental essence of the show we cherish so dearly.
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