Awards Season 2020

A subforum to discuss film culture and criticism.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
DarkImbecile
Ask me about my visible cat breasts
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

Re: Awards Season 2020

#501 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon Apr 26, 2021 3:02 pm

felipe wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 2:50 pm
It's baffling that they managed to strip the broadcast down completely, removing montages, comedy skits, musical performances, nominee clips - even fastforwarding through the In Memorian segment - and yet the ceremony still ran 3 hours and 20 minutes.

3 hours and 20 minutes of winners being announced one after the other and nothing in between to try to make it the least entertaining.
As I’ve argued before, the Oscars’ ongoing mistake is trying to appease those who don’t want to watch the show anyway by addressing their (often irrelevant) complaints rather than embracing and catering to their core audience, however long it takes and however much others make fun of you for it (and the same is true for baseball and other once dominant, now niche pastimes that only hurt what’s left of their standing by apologetically mutilating themselves in hopes of returning to past heights).

User avatar
Brian C
I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:58 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Awards Season 2020

#502 Post by Brian C » Mon Apr 26, 2021 4:47 pm

DarkImbecile wrote:As I’ve argued before, the Oscars’ ongoing mistake is trying to appease those who don’t want to watch the show anyway by addressing their (often irrelevant) complaints rather than embracing and catering to their core audience, however long it takes and however much others make fun of you for it (and the same is true for baseball and other once dominant, now niche pastimes that only hurt what’s left of their standing by apologetically mutilating themselves in hopes of returning to past heights).
I think this is backwards - you don’t get to be the 2nd biggest TV event of the year by “catering to the core audience.” You get to be the kind of event the Oscars used to be by going way beyond that, pulling in the casual audience, the curious, and various looky-loos that just happen to be channel surfing by. It’s not like everyone watching the Super Bowl is a huge football fan.

On the contrary, I suspect that it’s only the “core audience” that’s left for the Oscars (minus some last night for pandemic-related reasons) - people that care enough to sit through the show even though they all agree it’s shit. I agree that they’ll never hit the past highs, but there’s no reason they can’t do better than what they’ve been doing.

Related - I’ve resisted this before, but I think they need to go back to the 5 BP nominees and ditch this expanded field. I think it’s pretty clear that the value of a BP nominee has been watered down and as a result, studios have stopped chasing them unless they think they can win it.

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Awards Season 2020

#503 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Apr 26, 2021 4:55 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 10:54 am
Pavel wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 6:51 am
Hopkins' speech
Hopkins’ home looks like a solid quarantine spot
It could literally be said that he is out standing in his field! :)

User avatar
Pavel
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2020 2:41 pm

Re: Awards Season 2020

#504 Post by Pavel » Mon Apr 26, 2021 5:04 pm

Brian C wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 4:47 pm
Related - I’ve resisted this before, but I think they need to go back to the 5 BP nominees and ditch this expanded field. I think it’s pretty clear that the value of a BP nominee has been watered down and as a result, studios have stopped chasing them unless they think they can win it.
I get your point, but a BP nom is still practically the most recognition a film can get and there are plenty of films that I love that likely wouldn't've survived in a year with 5 nominees. Regardless of whether studios chase after them, it's cool to have more films get in — for example, one of my favorite parts of the noms was the support for Sound of Metal and there's no way that would've gotten in with 5 slots; the BP nom will almost certainly lead to more opportunities for Marder + will result in more people seeing the film. (The results of the nominations are already visible — a few days ago we learned that Florian Zeller is working on a new film with Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern.) The value may be watered down for studios, but it's certainly there for (especially up-and-coming) filmmakers and I'd hate to see that go for something that would have no effect on the ceremony.

User avatar
DarkImbecile
Ask me about my visible cat breasts
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

Re: Awards Season 2020

#505 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon Apr 26, 2021 6:42 pm

Brian C wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 4:47 pm
DarkImbecile wrote:As I’ve argued before, the Oscars’ ongoing mistake is trying to appease those who don’t want to watch the show anyway by addressing their (often irrelevant) complaints rather than embracing and catering to their core audience, however long it takes and however much others make fun of you for it (and the same is true for baseball and other once dominant, now niche pastimes that only hurt what’s left of their standing by apologetically mutilating themselves in hopes of returning to past heights).
I think this is backwards - you don’t get to be the 2nd biggest TV event of the year by “catering to the core audience.” You get to be the kind of event the Oscars used to be by going way beyond that, pulling in the casual audience, the curious, and various looky-loos that just happen to be channel surfing by. It’s not like everyone watching the Super Bowl is a huge football fan.

On the contrary, I suspect that it’s only the “core audience” that’s left for the Oscars (minus some last night for pandemic-related reasons) - people that care enough to sit through the show even though they all agree it’s shit. I agree that they’ll never hit the past highs, but there’s no reason they can’t do better than what they’ve been doing.

Related - I’ve resisted this before, but I think they need to go back to the 5 BP nominees and ditch this expanded field. I think it’s pretty clear that the value of a BP nominee has been watered down and as a result, studios have stopped chasing them unless they think they can win it.
It was still the largest non-football-related broadcast of the year last year (and might well be again this year), even if the overall number watching continues to plummet with the ongoing fragmentation of the viewing audience. That vast expansion of competing options for eyeballs— along with the decline in moviegoing generally — keeps any single set of nominated movies from dominating the cultural conversation the way they could 20+ years ago.

I agree that just presenting awards and speeches makes for a crappy broadcast, which is why they should bring back song performances (which were of course widely praised the year the shuffled them off to the pre-show), clips, hosts, comedic interludes, and all the other things that lead to the show being trashed as bloated. My whole point is that there is no longer a giant pool of viewers just channel surfing on a Sunday evening who are going to flock to the telecast if the producers just make the right tweak to how they present awards. So rather than chase the now-impossible ratings of 1998 by appealing to the shrinking margin of persuadable viewers, they could try to avoid alienating the people who still watch devotedly.

By appealing to their core audience of cinephiles and lovers of glamorous celebrity events — and ignoring those who bitch and moan about how long the show is or how lame a musical number might be — they’ll both make the show better for people like us and likely make it more broadly appealing than what happened last night.

User avatar
DarkImbecile
Ask me about my visible cat breasts
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

Re: Awards Season 2020

#506 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon Apr 26, 2021 6:52 pm

Oh, and I also agree with Pavel that the benefit to filmmakers and increased exposure for 3-4 extra BP-nominated movies per year is totally worth it (and those ‘extra’ films are often at least pretty good). I’m not sure that I buy that studios were once shooting to make movies that would be nominated for BP but not win, but now that it’s easier to do so have decided it’s not worth it.

User avatar
Brian C
I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:58 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Awards Season 2020

#507 Post by Brian C » Mon Apr 26, 2021 7:30 pm

Pavel wrote:I get your point, but a BP nom is still practically the most recognition a film can get and there are plenty of films that I love that likely wouldn't've survived in a year with 5 nominees. Regardless of whether studios chase after them, it's cool to have more films get in — for example, one of my favorite parts of the noms was the support for Sound of Metal and there's no way that would've gotten in with 5 slots; the BP nom will almost certainly lead to more opportunities for Marder + will result in more people seeing the film. (The results of the nominations are already visible — a few days ago we learned that Florian Zeller is working on a new film with Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern.) The value may be watered down for studios, but it's certainly there for (especially up-and-coming) filmmakers and I'd hate to see that go for something that would have no effect on the ceremony.
That was exactly my reasoning for a long time as well - I'm sure I've said as much elsewhere in this forum over the years - and certainly it's a fair point to make. But I look at the state of Hollywood today and I really wonder if it really works like that. As a viewer, am I really benefitting from this system? I'm beginning to have some serious doubts.

I'm not really sure how to explain what I'm thinking here, and it's probably pointless because I think there's a good chance that a genie's been let out of the bottle that can't be put back in. But if I can turn to a sports metaphor, you have the major leagues and the minor leagues. The studios are the major leagues - the most viewers, the most lucrative opportunities, the events that by and large make the biggest marks on the culture. The indies are the minor leagues - dedicated cadre of fans, surprisingly high-quality in lots of cases, but always struggling to get by. And essentially, the Oscars have become the equivalent of a World Series between minor-league teams. The majors have just kinda decided that they're mostly not interested.

This is, I realize, an inelegant metaphor. In a lot of ways, Amazon and (especially) Netflix are new majors, and they're aggressively chasing awards. But they're doing it with very highly targeted niche films. In total, I wonder if their awards-chasing is worse for the industry than the Weinsteins' back in the day; whether one likes the films or not, they seem very efficient in figuring out exactly who to target to get these nominations and awards, and I strongly suspect that with such an open BP field that they're able to do it with relatively small segments within the Academy. So what happens is a sort of selective-sorting phenomenon where you don't need any kind of consensus to get these BP nominations, and therefore the major studios aren't really interested in chasing them, and therefore they're not making movies that have a chance of generating that kind of consensus.

And maybe that's just the way it is now - after all, it's the logical outcome of an international marketplace that can generate billions of dollars of revenue for movies that are easily branded and franchised. Maybe the appeal of Oscar prestige is too minor nowadays to influence studio decision-making outside of the streaming giants looking to crash the cool-kids party.

I guess that I just wonder where all this is heading. We can be happy that some films are getting extra attention from Oscar nominations, but the way things are going, it won't be long before that extra attention is too minor to matter. The way it is, it seems like the culture has mostly moved on - how much extra attention did Sound of Metal really get from being nominated? A lot within the industry, perhaps, or at least the increasingly small percentage of the industry who cares about these things. But enough to keep this cycle going without rapidly diminishing returns taking their toll? Hard to say. I don't like the trends - people have been forecasting the death of movies forever, but it really feels like we're at a point in history where substantial numbers of people really feel like the cinema has passed them by, and that's an existential threat to the industry unless you just really love the MCU. After all, what happens when Netflix gets bored with chasing trophies and starts realizing that these movies aren't really making them much money?

Now this is all long and rambling and not entirely coherent and with particulars that are probably easily picked apart ... I'll grant all that. And of course I don't mean to sound like limiting the BP field will solve any of that by itself. And I realize the irony here, which is that expanded field itself was largely a response to The Dark Knight being snubbed. But whatever problem the expanded field was supposed to fix, it seems to have had the opposite effect - even keeping in mind that this pandemic year was weird, the biggest effect seems to have been to nominate a bunch of films with very limited appeal beyond their targeted audiences. I just don't think it's sustainable, because it creates a vicious cycle where the value of the nomination is lessened, which makes it even easier to get when fewer distributors decide to bother, and so on. As with many aspects of life today, I think we just need more systems in place that require some measure of consensus-building.

User avatar
captveg
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:28 pm

Re: Awards Season 2020

#508 Post by captveg » Mon Apr 26, 2021 10:58 pm

Next year I believe they go back to a mandatory 10 Best Picture nominees, IIRC.

felipe
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 11:06 pm

Re: Awards Season 2020

#509 Post by felipe » Mon Apr 26, 2021 11:36 pm

Brian C wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 7:30 pm
Pavel wrote:I get your point, but a BP nom is still practically the most recognition a film can get and there are plenty of films that I love that likely wouldn't've survived in a year with 5 nominees. Regardless of whether studios chase after them, it's cool to have more films get in — for example, one of my favorite parts of the noms was the support for Sound of Metal and there's no way that would've gotten in with 5 slots; the BP nom will almost certainly lead to more opportunities for Marder + will result in more people seeing the film. (The results of the nominations are already visible — a few days ago we learned that Florian Zeller is working on a new film with Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern.) The value may be watered down for studios, but it's certainly there for (especially up-and-coming) filmmakers and I'd hate to see that go for something that would have no effect on the ceremony.
That was exactly my reasoning for a long time as well - I'm sure I've said as much elsewhere in this forum over the years - and certainly it's a fair point to make. But I look at the state of Hollywood today and I really wonder if it really works like that. As a viewer, am I really benefitting from this system? I'm beginning to have some serious doubts.

I'm not really sure how to explain what I'm thinking here, and it's probably pointless because I think there's a good chance that a genie's been let out of the bottle that can't be put back in. But if I can turn to a sports metaphor, you have the major leagues and the minor leagues. The studios are the major leagues - the most viewers, the most lucrative opportunities, the events that by and large make the biggest marks on the culture. The indies are the minor leagues - dedicated cadre of fans, surprisingly high-quality in lots of cases, but always struggling to get by. And essentially, the Oscars have become the equivalent of a World Series between minor-league teams. The majors have just kinda decided that they're mostly not interested.

This is, I realize, an inelegant metaphor. In a lot of ways, Amazon and (especially) Netflix are new majors, and they're aggressively chasing awards. But they're doing it with very highly targeted niche films. In total, I wonder if their awards-chasing is worse for the industry than the Weinsteins' back in the day; whether one likes the films or not, they seem very efficient in figuring out exactly who to target to get these nominations and awards, and I strongly suspect that with such an open BP field that they're able to do it with relatively small segments within the Academy. So what happens is a sort of selective-sorting phenomenon where you don't need any kind of consensus to get these BP nominations, and therefore the major studios aren't really interested in chasing them, and therefore they're not making movies that have a chance of generating that kind of consensus.

And maybe that's just the way it is now - after all, it's the logical outcome of an international marketplace that can generate billions of dollars of revenue for movies that are easily branded and franchised. Maybe the appeal of Oscar prestige is too minor nowadays to influence studio decision-making outside of the streaming giants looking to crash the cool-kids party.

I guess that I just wonder where all this is heading. We can be happy that some films are getting extra attention from Oscar nominations, but the way things are going, it won't be long before that extra attention is too minor to matter. The way it is, it seems like the culture has mostly moved on - how much extra attention did Sound of Metal really get from being nominated? A lot within the industry, perhaps, or at least the increasingly small percentage of the industry who cares about these things. But enough to keep this cycle going without rapidly diminishing returns taking their toll? Hard to say. I don't like the trends - people have been forecasting the death of movies forever, but it really feels like we're at a point in history where substantial numbers of people really feel like the cinema has passed them by, and that's an existential threat to the industry unless you just really love the MCU. After all, what happens when Netflix gets bored with chasing trophies and starts realizing that these movies aren't really making them much money?

Now this is all long and rambling and not entirely coherent and with particulars that are probably easily picked apart ... I'll grant all that. And of course I don't mean to sound like limiting the BP field will solve any of that by itself. And I realize the irony here, which is that expanded field itself was largely a response to The Dark Knight being snubbed. But whatever problem the expanded field was supposed to fix, it seems to have had the opposite effect - even keeping in mind that this pandemic year was weird, the biggest effect seems to have been to nominate a bunch of films with very limited appeal beyond their targeted audiences. I just don't think it's sustainable, because it creates a vicious cycle where the value of the nomination is lessened, which makes it even easier to get when fewer distributors decide to bother, and so on. As with many aspects of life today, I think we just need more systems in place that require some measure of consensus-building.
I'm not sure I follow your point(s), but I don't think it's "too easy" to get a BP nomination nowadays just because they nominated 8 films instead of 5. There are still many films getting snubbed, be it indie darlings like First Cow or Netflix Oscar baits like Ma Raine's Black Bottom.

And I believe scoring a BP nomination still matters. Does it matter as much as 20 years ago? Hard to say. Maybe it actually matters more now that people have easier access to these films around the world.

User avatar
Pavel
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2020 2:41 pm

Re: Awards Season 2020

#510 Post by Pavel » Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:14 am

therewillbeblus wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:10 am
What are you talking about, Frances McDormand howling like a wolf totally connected with viewers
Apparently that howling (and saying "this is dedicated to our wolf") was to pay tribute to Nomadland's sound mixer Michael Wolf Snyder who committed suicide in March

User avatar
TMDaines
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:01 pm
Location: Stretford, Manchester

Re: Awards Season 2020

#511 Post by TMDaines » Wed Apr 28, 2021 5:34 am

Pavel wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:00 pm
The Best Actor slate this year was excellent and practically any of them (but mostly the top 3 contenders) would've been deserving imo (and, with the caveat that I haven't seen a lot of the Actor winners of the aughts and even early 2010s since I was busy watching Commando and Best Adapted Screenplay nominee Shrek, any one of them would've been my favorite winner since DDL in There Will Be Blood). In general, I think the winners in the acting categories are all excellent and I'm happy with the Oscars despite a lackluster ceremony.
I've seen most of the films nominated for the big awards and I would echo the general vibe. The Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories all had a number of strong entries. I reckon Viola Davis would have done very well as Best Supporting Actress, as that category struck me as pretty weak.

User avatar
thirtyframesasecond
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2007 1:48 pm

Re: Awards Season 2020

#512 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Wed Apr 28, 2021 7:33 am

Toland's Mitchell wrote:
Mon Apr 26, 2021 2:14 pm
It's pretty wild. The show was eclipsing an average of 40 million viewers just seven years ago, and couldn't even muster a quarter of that figure last night. Granted there have been trends and forces at play in recent times the Academy had no control over, but they have to share a significant portion of the blame. I don't entirely agree with the Bill Maher segment mentioned upthread but I think it summarized things pretty accurately.
I assume loads of 'classic liberals' or 'free speech champions' (who're basically insane right-wingers but don't want to self-identify as such) will put it down to political correctness or 'go woke, go broke' and scream 'why can't Ricky Gervais host?' Seems pretty short-sighted and just wishing to project your own prejudices onto what is a) the weirdest/most depressed year for filmgoing (ever?) and) a natural decline based on changing viewing patterns. Aren't TV shows really just there so small clips make it onto Twitter now?

User avatar
hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Awards Season 2020

#513 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:24 am

thirtyframesasecond wrote:
Wed Apr 28, 2021 7:33 am
Seems pretty short-sighted and just wishing to project your own prejudices onto what is a) the weirdest/most depressed year for filmgoing (ever?) and) a natural decline based on changing viewing patterns. Aren't TV shows really just there so small clips make it onto Twitter now?
That's pretty much how I "watch" new episodes of SNL, rather than sit through a mixed bag of 90 minutes (almost 30 of which are commercials) I spend 10 or 20 watching the sketches and maybe the musical performances that get talked about the next day.

But everyone been's moaning about declining ratings for a decade (maybe TWO decades) now. I understand the motivation, if most of their cash has been coming from the ceremony's broadcast, then it really is a big deal, but at this point, I wonder how much they can do without making it a completely different show? I'm not sure the audience they want is there anymore - among special event broadcasts, I think only live sports events draw anything like the numbers they had 25 years ago. If the primary concern is really money for the Academy, they need to find other ways to do it rather than rely so much on the Oscars.

User avatar
ianthemovie
Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2009 10:51 am
Location: Boston, MA
Contact:

Re: Awards Season 2020

#514 Post by ianthemovie » Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:46 am

hearthesilence wrote:
Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:24 am
That's pretty much how I "watch" new episodes of SNL, rather than sit through a mixed bag of 90 minutes (almost 30 of which are commercials) I spend 10 or 20 watching the sketches and maybe the musical performances that get talked about the next day.
Similarly, I ended up watching clips from this year's telecast on YouTube... but only because, as someone who doesn't pay for network TV, it was the only way to do so. I much would have preferred to tune in and watch the full show live, but it wasn't even streaming through ABC's website, and apparently you have to pay upwards of $60/month to watch live network TV on Hulu, which isn't happening for me. Gathering to watch the show at an Oscar party, with friends who get ABC, or in some public place is also less easy to do these days due to the pandemic. So there is an even bigger issue at play here that isn't specific to the Oscars, having to do with increasing numbers of people (especially people under 40) no longer having easy access to network TV.

User avatar
soundchaser
Leave Her to Beaver
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2016 12:32 am

Re: Awards Season 2020

#515 Post by soundchaser » Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:51 am

ianthemovie wrote:
Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:46 am
Similarly, I ended up watching clips from this year's telecast on YouTube... but only because, as someone who doesn't pay for network TV, it was the only way to do so. I much would have preferred to tune in and watch the full show live, but it wasn't even streaming through ABC's website, and apparently you have to pay upwards of $60/month to watch live network TV on Hulu, which isn't happening for me. Gathering to watch the show at an Oscar party, with friends who get ABC, or in some public place is also less easy to do these days due to the pandemic. So there is an even bigger issue at play here that isn't specific to the Oscars, having to do with increasing numbers of people (especially people under 40) no longer having easy access to network TV.
To back this up: I (especially a person under 40) had to sign up for a free trial of YouTube TV because my Vizio doesn't even have a TV tuner built in. If that weren't an option, I would have resorted to something nefarious. I just don't watch a lot of broadcasts live, and I can get local news on my Roku.

User avatar
DarkImbecile
Ask me about my visible cat breasts
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

Re: Awards Season 2020

#516 Post by DarkImbecile » Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:55 am

Assuming you have a modern television and don't particularly care about picture quality for a handful of network TV events per year, you can buy the modern version of rabbit ears for less than $15 and watch for free.

User avatar
ianthemovie
Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2009 10:51 am
Location: Boston, MA
Contact:

Re: Awards Season 2020

#517 Post by ianthemovie » Wed Apr 28, 2021 11:02 am

DarkImbecile wrote:
Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:55 am
Assuming you have a modern television and don't particularly care about picture quality for a handful of network TV events per year, you can buy the modern version of rabbit ears for less than $15 and watch for free.
It's worth trying, but this strategy has been very hit or miss for me based on my location. At a previous apartment I could use a digital antenna to pick up ABC (which solved my problem of how to watch the Oscars for the 6 or so years I lived there) but no other network channels. My next two apartments haven't picked up anything. So mileage will vary with this.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Awards Season 2020

#518 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Apr 28, 2021 11:09 am

soundchaser wrote:
Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:51 am
ianthemovie wrote:
Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:46 am
Similarly, I ended up watching clips from this year's telecast on YouTube... but only because, as someone who doesn't pay for network TV, it was the only way to do so. I much would have preferred to tune in and watch the full show live, but it wasn't even streaming through ABC's website, and apparently you have to pay upwards of $60/month to watch live network TV on Hulu, which isn't happening for me. Gathering to watch the show at an Oscar party, with friends who get ABC, or in some public place is also less easy to do these days due to the pandemic. So there is an even bigger issue at play here that isn't specific to the Oscars, having to do with increasing numbers of people (especially people under 40) no longer having easy access to network TV.
To back this up: I (especially a person under 40) had to sign up for a free trial of YouTube TV because my Vizio doesn't even have a TV tuner built in. If that weren't an option, I would have resorted to something nefarious. I just don't watch a lot of broadcasts live, and I can get local news on my Roku.
Count me in here too, the last handful of years watching someone at my Oscar party has made a free trial at one of the listed options and then promptly canceled it- with not a person who has even a basic package among us. While $15 for rabbit ears is helpful info, I’m not sure how much motivation I have to invest in that when the only thing I watch on TV all year is the Oscars. I realize there are all sorts of reasons why this couldn’t happen, but if ABC partnered with, say, Netflix or Amazon Prime, for some kind of live stream event, I’d wager we would see ratings soar- especially with some bare minimum advertising on the platforms. The truth is, almost everyone is just on Netflix these days (I’ll never forget reading a study in grad school about five years ago, where the avg American across demographics averaged slightly over 2 hours of Netflix (specifically!) per day, which was second only to sleep and work). I never realized how prevalent it was until then, but it’s basically usurped TV especially for lower socioeconomic groups due to the price.

User avatar
hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Awards Season 2020

#519 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Apr 28, 2021 11:17 am

I just stream it on my laptop through XFinity or whoever my provider may be. I just realized I haven't watched the Oscars outside of my home since probably 2012, and by then it was getting tough to find anyone else who wanted to watch. Fine by me, because it was a lot easier to watch when I was in a time zone closer to PST - it's kind of nice being able to go to sleep right when the broadcast is over.

And I think I mentioned this before, but I don't even have the sound on most of the time - I just put on CC and play records, stopping for clip shows or any other moments that seem interesting. I don't think I'd enjoy it otherwise, and if it's that tough for me, it's easy to see why awards shows don't have the same audience when people have far more viewing options now.

felipe
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 11:06 pm

Re: Awards Season 2020

#520 Post by felipe » Wed Apr 28, 2021 7:03 pm

Ok, I'm a little lost now. I thought every tv in the US had network channels. Isn't the whole point of network tv being free as opposed to cable?

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Awards Season 2020

#521 Post by knives » Wed Apr 28, 2021 7:12 pm

They do if you can get a signal which is why you would need to pick up bunny ears.

User avatar
soundchaser
Leave Her to Beaver
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2016 12:32 am

Re: Awards Season 2020

#522 Post by soundchaser » Wed Apr 28, 2021 7:38 pm

And if your TV has a built-in TV tuner, which my Vizio does not. So it would mean the rabbit ears and an extra box just for the Oscars.

User avatar
Brian C
I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:58 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Awards Season 2020

#523 Post by Brian C » Thu Apr 29, 2021 1:12 am

From the "learn something new every day" files - I had no idea TVs were being sold without built-in tuners. I guess it's not real hard to understand why, but I just didn't know it was a thing.

Anyway, back to declining ratings, I find a lot of the explanations other than "because the show sucks and people hate it" to be sort of unpersuasive. I mean, I know that there are more options, etc., and that viewership of everything other than live sports has declined bigly. But the Oscars seem like an event that has - or at least used to have - a lot in common with live sports. People had Oscar parties, office Oscar pools, there was some unpredictability about who would win, and so forth. It wasn't an event as big as the Super Bowl, but ... it was a lot like the Super Bowl, albeit for a different demographic. It doesn't seem like a foregone conclusion that the Oscars would face such a steep decline in viewership, just like the Super Bowl for the most part hasn't. We're not talking about a Tim Allen sitcom here.

Yet it seems as though a lot of that is gone. There are 50 million or so more people in the US now than there were 20 years ago, and yet the viewership of the Oscars - even before this year - dropped by about half from the peak in 1998. Hell, it had dropped almost by about 40% in just the previous 5 years ... just off a cliff, virtually all at once. It would obviously make sense if the Oscars' share of the audience was in steady decline, with the proliferation of viewing options, but that big of a drop in absolute viewers, in so short a period? How can one come to the conclusion that the show itself isn't largely to blame?

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Awards Season 2020

#524 Post by knives » Thu Apr 29, 2021 6:19 am

Love sports also are seeing declining ratings it should be said.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Awards Season 2020

#525 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:15 am

Brian C wrote:
Thu Apr 29, 2021 1:12 am
How can one come to the conclusion that the show itself isn't largely to blame?
I hear what you're saying, and I think it's a combination of many factors, including the show's- but I also believe that within a short period of time many people have transitioned away from a model of tradition into a model of convenience. I often underestimate the psychology of, when someone is in the privacy of their own home/comfort zone and away from spaces where they need to exert effort to adapt, how defaulting to what's in front of someone wins out over efforts to engage with what isn't, especially if someone doesn't possess the tools or skills to find that. I have friends who are yearly Oscar voters and huge film fans, but who decided to "just follow online this year" because they didn't feel like finding a stream or make a free trial. To use a more fitting example to my last point, my mother who has treated the Oscars as a superbowl my entire life- and really got me into the spirit of the ceremony as a kid- doesn't watch anymore because the cable packages have gotten too expensive so she's dropped those services from her internet (they used to come together until not that long ago), and she's transitioned into a living situation with only Netflix.

And she totally would watch the Oscars if she was tech savvy and could figure out how to navigate the internet to find free trials and streams, but she doesn't feel comfortable doing that nor does she even know how to get started. So if, hypothetically speaking but I don't think demographically 'off', this tradition was mostly kept by people who are entering their later years, and with the age demographics approaching a record in the U.S., soon to be 20% and outnumbering children (which is why social workers are being aggressively ushered into elder care right now) it's worth noting that the hoops one needs to jump through may be too directionless for the population who may be more likely to stick to these traditions. I'm not suggesting this is "the" reason, but I do think that these kinds of trends and the populations they affect are making a difference in creating barriers that impede these group events, individual viewership, and override dedication to the ceremony.

Post Reply