With the Academy Awards coming up this Sunday, there has been a lot of conversation about the number of changes that have been made to this year’s broadcast. These changes have most definitely been in response to last year’s ceremony having the lowest viewership recorded since the first record of viewership in 1974.
Sadly, the modifications the Academy is attempting will probably not succeed in the way that it hopes. As of right now, these adjustments have mainly been annoying the longtime viewers who are excited to watch the ceremony year after year.
The two major changes that are happening this year are the addition of two social media-based awards (the #OscarsFanFavorite and #OscarsCheerMoment awards) and eight awards being removed from the full presentation on the broadcast. Instead, the presentations for the awards will be taped an hour before the live broadcast, with just the highlights of the acceptance speeches to be shown during the actual broadcast.
While not a change, the additional announcement that numerous celebrities not directly related to film will present at the ceremony this year, including Tony Hawk, Shawn White and DJ Khaled, can seem unappealing to fans of film.
When combined, all of these new proposals have made fans of the ceremony feel that the Academy is abandoning the art of cinema that they are supposed to be celebrating in exchange for an attempt to draw in a larger general audience. This has been expressed through online backlash from the public and opposition from prominent figures in film, including directors like Steven Spielberg and actors such as Jessica Chastain.
What the Academy doesn’t seem to understand is that the ceremony will never be as large in viewership as it once was. This likely has less to do with anything they have specifically done than the fact that the times have changed. The massive increase in unfunny sketches and the inclusion of these worthless fan awards certainly don’t help, either. The general public is now much more likely to just read a list of the winners online the following morning, or read about it in real time on a social media platform.
So instead of attempting to reach an audience that does not care about cinema, the Academy Awards should instead be going all in on the audience that is already going to watch the ceremony no matter what: the film fans who have been keeping tabs on the year’s releases and are excited to see people get rewarded for their hard work. Removing smaller awards from the live show feels distasteful, and goes against celebrating what makes the Academy Awards great to begin with.
This year definitely has the potential to bring a great ceremony again that brings attention to recent accomplishments in film and celebrates the film experience. But instead, the Academy seems focused on trying to make it “the Super Bowl for movies”.
Because of a contracting deal set in place, the Academy has also had to present its ceremony live via ABC for a large number of years. This is both a big limiting factor and a massive reason as to why the ceremony has been plummeting in viewership year after year, and the plans they currently have will do little to reverse this trend.
Award shows like The Game Awards that have their ceremonies streamable online have continued to grow in viewership year after year. With Disney owning ABC, it shouldn’t be that difficult to put a livestream of the Oscars on a Disney-owned streaming service such as Disney+ or Hulu instead of locking it behind cable television.
If the Academy wants to make the Oscars more accessible to a wider audience, it shouldn’t be limiting the viewership of the ceremony to the dwindling cable market. No one looks at the Academy and thinks “What a forward-looking institution,” and this year’s ceremony proves it.
