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September 25, 2008
What’s With All The Oscar Whining?
Oy... give the hungry monkeys a tiny bit of meat and they go nuts!
Yesterday, Larry Mark and Bill Condon were handed the reins of The Oscars, as the Academy gets more and more fearful that their the cash cow of all cash cows is fading and fading fast.
But this hire is not like adding a "$100 Million Movie Award" or "Best Kiss" to the show.
This is hiring theater guys who are also vested movie guys to come up with a better show... a show that the Academy Board hopes will set a new standard moving forward.
Like so many things, The Academy has to come to an acceptance of being the biggest dog on a block that is, simply, getting smaller. And to that end, a few real changes to a show that has been boilerplate for a long time is a step in a right direction... EVEN IF THIS YEAR'S RATINGS ARE DOWN AGAIN.
This is a critical point. One of the reasons that The Oscars haven't changed much is that every time they try something, it gets slammed by traditionalists (sometimes rightly) and the ratings don't improve - expecting them to, from show content changed in the same year makes no sense - so they retreat.
I’m not going to play a public gotcha game with the Academy or the new team, laying out my personal suggestions in public and then either saying, “Toldja” or “Ya Shoulda Listened!” after the fact.
It is all too easy for all of us to forget that putting on a show – whether a movie or a TV show or a play or an awards show – is not a game for those doing the actual work. We, in the media and commenting on blogs, do not belong wandering through the process of any of these media. I know we all want to feel like part of the conversation. But we continue to tear at the fabric of art in process out of sheer personal arrogance.
Anyway…
Larry Mark is a consummate insider. Bill Condon is a consummate artist. I imagine that Larry will let Bill do the conceptual work and clearly add his sense of the world to the conversation. But when push comes to shove, look for the duo to work like traditional producer/artists combos… the artist does the art and the producer helps shape it and then goes out and makes the impossible happen.
One thing I do know for sure… there is no filmmaker in this business with a more passionate interest and love for The Oscars than Bill Condon. It has always been my impression that he enjoys award season even more when his neck is not on the line as a potential nominee than when it is.
As for what they may do or what they should do, the job is simple… create a show that feels more like a must-see than it has in recent years.
This is not an easy thing. Everyone talks about how much more fun other shows are, but it is often forgotten than none of those shows – The Globes, MTV Movie Awards, SAG, People’s Choice – have anything close to the ratings that Oscar has, even in a down year.
Last year, with no Globes running, The Academy got the shock-treatment of a 24% drop in the ratings with adults 18-49, with a 10.7 rating and 32 million viewers overall.
The year before, 2007, the Golden Globes touted a big uptick in their ratings after a couple of down years… with a 6.5 in the same group and 20 million viewers overall.
The MTV Movie Awards high of a 3.8 rating is great for them… but suicide watch for The Academy… and that is with multiple plays over multiple cable networks.
But then again, The Academy nets about $30 million a year from The Oscars and the HFPA is thrilled to be netting about $8 million annually from The Golden Globes. The Academy needs the big numbers to come back. And that may not ever happen.
The illusion out there is that mega-movies raise interest significantly and that a few bigger films are the way out of the ratings doldrums. But if you look at the ratings and the box office numbers, there are some positive bumps for phenomenal movies like Titanic and the Lord of the Rings that won. (Note that the two years that Rings was nominated and didn’t win were down, just like usual… and you can’t tune in knowing the outcome.)
39 million – 47 million viewers is the range for the show, the ratings between a 23 and a 29. Last year was the first time the Oscars saw a ratings dip below 20 and below 38 million viewers (aside from, in the overall number of people, the Chicago-winning year, which competed with the start of the Iraq war for America’s focus.)
But need I remind you that the ratings for the Oscar show the year of The English Patient, one year before the massive Oscars hit of Titanic, with Jerry Maguire, Shine, Fargo, and Secrets & Lies also nominated (domestic grosses for the winner, $78.7m, Jerry Maguire doing $154m, and followed in order by grosses of $36m, $25m, and $13m) was still a 30?
Last year was particularly bad, but the ratings have been in a clear and consistent free fall for over a decade now. There is no consistent jump in ratings when bigger movies win. When Gladiator won, the ratings were down. Same with The Departed. And even if Mark/Condon “brings the ratings back up” to, say, a 23, that is back to the normal dropping ratings, not a return to the heyday.
The high target needs to be about a 24 and 40 million viewers. The reasonable target needs to be about a 22 and 38 million viewers. And a 21 and 36 million viewers is not a disaster.
If the rating stays under 20 and the viewership remains under 33 million this year, it will signal a real shift in what is possible for this event and the deal with ABC, which I believe has this year and next left on it, will be in jeopardy of a big cutback in cost. The Academy would like have to end up with whoever felt they needed a ratings boost from the annual event. None of the broadcast networks are that desperate, though the cable/broadcast possibilities of NBC and Fox would make them the most likely suspects.
But I digress…
It is very difficult to figure out whether the ratings decline can be stopped and if so, what the causes are. I would suggest that last year, with dark movies, a distracting WGA strike, and the start of a hot election season, was an anomaly, as the Chicago year was.
But not unlike Siskel & Ebert, when an event is a phenomenon greater than the sum of its parts, it is usually impossible to regain the magic. Mark/Condon can come up with a better show. They can improve the show, within the limitations of The Academy (such as no round tables… too Globes… and no further significant shortening of the season.)
To use another analogy, it is not unlike the festival circuit. There is only so much need for the markets that the biggest festivals have become... and even they are sliding. Meanwhile Tribeca can throw money at their aspirations and still not become “important.” There is only so much need for awards shows.
Make a better show. I am confident that they will. But the ratings are not about quality anymore than movie box office is. Yes, it matters. No, the best movies won’t make the most and the worst will certainly not make the least. Let the creative people do their work, stop guessing and poking at them, and we’ll see the show in a few months.
And start cutting the Academy budget because the show may rebound, but it’s not heading back to Super Bowl numbers… ever. Get used to it.
Posted by dpoland at September 25, 2008 01:03 PM
Comments
Here's how you get the fucking ratings up: NOMINATE THE DARK KNIGHT IN MULTIPLE FREAKIN CATEGORIES. If this Academy continually ignores it's biggest genre. They will just have to accept that one day soon. The Tony's and The Oscar's will have a lot more in common than anyone in that nice ACADEMY BUILDING would ever freakin like.
Posted by: IOIOIOI ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 25, 2008 05:03 PM
Which genre is that, the PG-13 action movie? Return of the King just won a few years ago. The noirish crime movie? The Departed and No Country won the last two years. The highest-grossing movie of the year? They have an award for that, it's called Making The Most Money of Any Movie All Year.
Posted by: jeffmcm at September 25, 2008 05:11 PM
I think you gotta educate the masses. What the hell would someone wanna sit down for 4 hours to not know jack about what they're gonna see? They can't just let what movies are doing at the b.o. determine people's interest/knowledge of the nominees. The costumes & art nominees are many times from small period pieces. During the broadcast they'll show like 10-15 seconds of the movie and get a quote about the experience on their contribution to the film. It's too little too late. Maybe no one knows about the lighting process or sound mixing, but let people know the creative process or maybe a little about the people.
NBC shows Olympic trails. Sure, I complain about how a lot of their packages trying to overblow any event to make it some huge over come adversity to triumph and whoever has the saddest story should win mentality but every once in a while they get a wrestler like Rulon Gardner from a small Wyoming town or that 41-year-old mother of two coming out of retirement to swim. People have some inkling who's involved and these events get a boost. Give the audience some reason to tune in before what they guess will be the final 15 minutes.
Next, ramp up the gambling, and then wink like you don't condone it. CBS pays a billion dollars for college hoops rights. NCAA tourney pool brackets floating around every gosh darn office in the country is a nice little incentive to get some otherwise uninterested people to tune in. Look at the explosion of online fantasy football sites. Get some sponsorship of Oscar ballot contests and watch those jonesing between the Super Bowl and Final Four to run to the copier w/their ballot and a few reasons to turn in for the awards.
That's the broad strokes. I'd give details but I'm gonna need to be paid as a consultant.
Posted by: Triple Option at September 25, 2008 06:25 PM
The Oscars are a victim of changing society. The movies used to be for everybody; now they're for stupid teenagers. The handful of grown-up films that do get made and then nominated are of no interest to kids. That just leaves a dwindling audience of adults who are tired of seeing films in multiplexes full of noisy, texting teens, and wait for the DVD. But since the Oscar chasers all come out at the end of the year, the Netflixers don't get to see them until after the ceremony, so they pass on it. No kids, no adults, no ratings. It's not rocket science, people.
Posted by: Cadavra at September 25, 2008 08:24 PM
Is the Oscar chart meaning to imply Angelina Jolie was nominated for "Mighty Heart?" She wasn't.
Posted by: chris at September 25, 2008 09:25 PM
Yeah, the Jolie comment didn't track for me either. Maybe it was a phrasing problem?
Posted by: yancyskancy at September 26, 2008 12:12 AM
Triple Option makes very good points. That would work more than Cad complaining about the teenagers. Movies are still made for everyone. The teenagers seem to be the only people that like going to the theatre. So the studios have to throw them a bone every once in a while, but Burn After Reading still got made. This means: QUIT YOUR COMPLAININ!
Finally we come to Douche McGee aka Twatlips McCord aka Bennington Daffington aka Rupert Kittles aka Jeff Mac! The COMIC BOOK GENRE NUMBNUTS. This is why you are no longer treated with civility because you make stupid fucking statements.
No matter what mutiny states. This decade will not be remembered for Potter or Rings. It will be remembered for Spidey, Bats, and Tony. This is how it will work, but the Academy has totally ignored this for a bunch of walking assholes. Who simply did not use those eagles to fly over Mount Doom, and make their journey a lot easier.
The Academy ignores those films, but have a chance this year to atone for their sins. If they ignore the Dark Knight for this bumper crop of average crop of contenders on paper. They will reap what they sow and their show becomes even more irrevelant.
Until someone fucking tells them to spend more time on SELLING THE NOMINATED FILMS, instead of selling us the medium of FILM. It's not like film popularity is waning. People love movies. Now the people just need an award show that spends 3 hours explaining why and awarding the best of each category in a year. Unless we are counting FX by ILM or a movie directed by numero uno aka David Fincher, then they just need to know that those nominees are screwed.
Posted by: IOIOIOI at September 26, 2008 03:47 AM
C'mon, IO. Go back to the 70s. You had great comedies like WHAT'S UP, DOC?, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, SLEEPER, MURDER BY DEATH, THE BAD NEWS BEARS, AIRPLANE! (filmed in '79) and tons more that absolutely played across the board. The comedies today are brainless collections of unfunny gags involving bodily functions, all aimed at the very lowest common denominator--the key art for COLLEGE is a guy barfing into a toilet, f'chrissake. Serious drama has been relegated to the indies, except when there's a name director with enough pull to get one made. We're lucky if we get one western a year, ditto musicals that feature people over 25. And if Lee Marvin told me I was under arrest, I'd be a hell of a lot more worried than if it were Josh Hartnett. And since I'm smart enough to know it ain't ever going back to the way it used to be, please allow me my kvetching.
Posted by: Cadavra at September 26, 2008 10:31 AM
IOI, I knew you meant comic book movies, but I was trying to give you some room to wiggle out of that corner you want to paint yourself into. No comic book movie, with the possible exception of Dark Knight, has ever merited Best Picture consideration. I like Iron Man and the first two Spider-Man movies - #2 was on my top ten for that year - but the Academy would never look at them as anything other than profitable kid movies. And while they've nominated some stinkers over the years, there's not really any reason for the Oscars to turn themselves into the MTV Movie Awards because you feel like your tastes need to be validated.
Posted by: jeffmcm at September 26, 2008 11:58 AM
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