GDT The 94th Oscars - The Power Of The Slap

[Tonneau]

The Oscars apparently had 16.4m viewers before the slap and ‘only’ gained like 400k viewers after it. A moment in time and it barely made a dent in live tv viewership

They have that many viewers? Why do people always make it sound like there are only about 100 viewers?

 

[Osprey]

They have that many viewers? Why do people always make it sound like there are only about 100 viewers?

It's all relative. From 1980 until 2014, viewership averaged 40M. Last year, it was 10M and even this year's 16M is less than half of what it was just 8 years ago. COVID likely had a lot to do with that, but 2020 (held before the world stopped) was only 24M, which is still well below the pre-2014 average. For those curious, the peak of viewership was 55M in 1998 (Titanic's year).

 

[DaaaaB's]

“There's no such thing as bad publicity.” - PT Barnum

“There's only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” - Oscar Wilde

Both those quotes are ridiculous, false and from over a hundred years ago. I honestly can't believe anyone would think this was staged. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me given all the other absurd things people believe in.

 

[GKJ]

It's all relative. From 1980 until 2014, viewership averaged 40M. Last year, it was 10M and even this year's 16M is less than half of what it was just 8 years ago. COVID likely had a lot to do with that, but 2020 (held before the world stopped) was only 24M, which is still well below the pre-2014 average. For those curious, the peak of viewership was 55M in 1998 (Titanic's year).

Covid is probably only a little part of it. The other is that most, not all, of these movies aren't a big deal when they're released, so not many people are seeing them and thus don't care. I think these movies specifically are also starting to get reputations that while they are good, they're not feel-good watches in a lot of cases, a lot of them are downright sad, if not slow, and generally aren't movies you get together with everyone to watch so they lack the buzz. They're movies where the common person will only watch if they are bored.

 

[Osprey]

Covid is probably only a little part of it. The other is that most, not all, of these movies aren't a big deal when they're released, so not many people are seeing them and thus don't care. I think these movies specifically are also starting to get reputations that while they are good, they're not feel-good watches in a lot of cases, a lot of them are downright sad, if not slow, and generally aren't movies you get together with everyone to watch so they lack the buzz. They're movies where the common person will only watch if they are bored.

COVID is only a small part of the overall decline, yeah. It likely explains the fact that viewership was as low as it was (10M and 16M) these last two years, but it doesn't explain the drop from 44M to 24M in the 6 years just before COVID (which can be attributed to the reasons that you listed and others). That's what I was trying to say. I was just trying to quantify COVID's impact lest someone argue that viewership is down because of it. It is, but it's down a lot more for other reasons.

 

[Osprey]

An interesting and informative (and long) analysis that I just watched:

 

[Guardian17]

An interesting and informative (and long) analysis that I just watched:

@Osprey that was an excellent video!

I did not know that Chris Rock could be leaning forward because of the lights shining in his face.

The author also pointed out the "fight" reactions that Chris Rock made that I missed.

I am man enough to admit this video changed my mind, I do not think it was staged!

Thank you again for keeping it civil and presenting facts.

 

[Osprey]

@Osprey that was an excellent video!

I did not know that Chris Rock could be leaning forward because of the lights shining in his face.

The author also pointed out the "fight" reactions that Chris Rock made that I missed.

I am man enough to admit this video changed my mind, I do not think it was staged!

Thank you again for keeping it civil and presenting facts.

You're welcome and thanks, but it's easy to do with you because I like you and know that you're a reasonable, open minded person and you just proved it. Credit to you for that. Cheers.

 

[Nasti]

Can’t stand the people who are both sides-ing this thing. It‘s like if one guy insulted someone and the other guy draws a gun and shoots him. “Both sides were wrong.“

Rock’s joke was tame compared to some other jokes I’ve seen at the Oscars and for all we know, he may not have known about her disease. Getting roasted comes with the territory when you’re a gazillionaire sitting in the front row of an award show.

 

[SirClintonPortis]

Agreed. Like Smith is willingly going to do this to his career and push his marriage woes into the spotlight. Until now, I didn't know anything about their issues that are openly being discussed all over the place. Some people just can't accept crazy stuff actually happening and this is not the 1st time at an awards show. It's a bit to do with our recent environment of fake news, controversy and internet edits.

The stuff was already in the spotlight and public. Smith and Jada did a feature on her Facebook show "Red Table Talk".



If anything, the reason WIll Smith hasn't divorced yet is because he doesn't want this marriage to fail. He called his first divorce "the ultimate failure".

Will Smith says divorce from 1st wife was 'the worst thing in my adult life'

The actor gets real about the pain that came with the demise of his first marriage.

www.today.com

 

[kihei]

I'm not so sure that the decline in interest in the Academy Awards is just strictly related to the quality of the movies today compared to the past. I think a bigger factor is Hollywood isn't glamourous anymore, not the way it used to be when stars were more distant than familiar figures and, as a result, had way more mystique. Compare the presenters at this year's Oscars, many of whom I didn't recognize, with presenters during Oscar's Golden Age in the '50s, where in any given year you would have participating movie stars of the stature of Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, Fred Astaire, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart, Audrie Hepburn and on and on. There were a lot of shitty movies nominated in the '50s, but that didn't keep people from turning in to the Oscars to see the stars. Today's stars for the most part seem pretty ordinary in comparison.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Mel Gibson was going an interview with foxnews--you can tell he hates doing interviews and when he was asked about the slap--signalled his assistant that the interview was over

 

[Osprey]

I'm not so sure that the decline in interest in the Academy Awards is just strictly related to the quality of the movies today compared to the past. I think a bigger factor is Hollywood isn't glamourous anymore, not the way it used to be when stars were more distant than familiar figures and, as a result, had way more mystique. Compare the presenters at this year's Oscars, many of whom I didn't recognize, with presenters during Oscar's Golden Age in the '50s, where in any given year you would have participating movie stars of the stature of Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, Fred Astaire, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart, Audrie Hepburn and on and on. There were a lot of shitty movies nominated in the '50s, but that didn't keep people from turning in to the Oscars to see the stars. Today's stars for the most part seem pretty ordinary in comparison.

That could explain why viewership has very steadily declined over the decades, but it was still pretty strong in 2014 and then rapidly declined.

Hollywood couldn't have lost that much glamour overnight. The Best Picture winners did seem to change, though. In 2014, the last strong year, the winner was 12 Years a Slave, a pretty popular and somewhat mainstream movie. The next three winners, from 2015-17, were Birdman, Spotlight and Moonlight, all movies that probably mostly cinephiles went to see and had any interest in. I suspect that a lot of people lost interest because the movies getting the most buzz were ones that few of them had seen.

Also, all of the controversy and bad publicity surrounding the Oscars in the last 7 years (ex. #OscarsSoWhite, removing categories, rescinding nominations, announcing the wrong winner) has likely hurt its image. In fact, the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag and the resulting boycott were for the 2015 awards, which aligns. It looks like that and Birdman might've started the decline and then more controversies and non-mainstream films kept it going.

 

[Osprey]

Netflix Backs Away From Will Smith Film ‘Fast and Loose’ (Exclusive)

The project had already lost director David Leitch before the infamous Oscars slap, and now the streaming service has quietly moved the film to the back burner in the awards ceremony’s wake, according to sources.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

According to sources, Netflix put out an urgent call for another director to take over a project featuring the star who was heavily favored to win best actor at the Oscars. But soon after Smith’s attack on Chris Rock on the Oscars stage, Netflix quietly moved the project to the back burner.

 

[kihei]

That could explain why viewership has very steadily declined over the decades, but it was still pretty strong in 2014 and then rapidly declined.

Hollywood couldn't have lost that much glamour overnight. The Best Picture winners did seem to change, though. In 2014, the last strong year, the winner was 12 Years a Slave, a pretty popular and somewhat mainstream movie. The next three winners, from 2015-17, were Birdman, Spotlight and Moonlight, all movies that probably mostly cinephiles went to see and had any interest in. I suspect that a lot of people lost interest because the movies getting the most buzz were ones that few of them had seen.

Also, all of the controversy and bad publicity surrounding the Oscars in the last 7 years (ex. #OscarsSoWhite, removing categories, rescinding nominations, announcing the wrong winner) has likely hurt its image. In fact, the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag and the resulting boycott were for the 2015 awards, which aligns. It looks like that and Birdman might've started the decline and then more controversies and non-mainstream films kept it going.

Good points.

I'm awful on the subject of charts. Still I would be interested to know how the above chart would look if--I don't even know how to explain this--the number of viewers over the years was compared with the number of televisiion sets available for watching the event each year, especially if one could extrapolate that corelation back to the mid '50s, say, during the heyday of the Golden Age. Might not make that much of a difference, but I would be curious to see if there was a more precipitice drop over the years when the data is presented that way.

 

[SirClintonPortis]

Good points.

I'm awful on the subject of charts. Still I would be interested to know how the above chart would look if--I don't even know how to explain this--the number of viewers over the years was compared with the number of televisiion sets available for watching the event each year, especially if one could extrapolate that corelation back to the mid '50s, say, during the heyday of the Golden Age. Might not make that much of a difference, but I would be curious to see if there was a more precipitice drop over the years when the data is presented that way.

Alternative sources like "TV"(streaming) and possibly the likes of the Weinstein scandal also comes to mind. Politics perhaps as well.

Quite possible that people now can find "idols" elsewhere like Youtube or for Zers...Tiktok, so people no longer are starved for video content that much. The older generations are dying out and also are not the same as the "old" of 20-30 years ago.

 

[Richard]

It's also due to the fact that Hollywood has pretty much lost everyone with a brain who is a working class "middle" American. We are all tired of being preached out by these patronizing proselytizing pukes. It is no coincident that a close synonym of "actor" is "hypocrite."

My mom used to watch the Oscars, Grammys, etc. --- she hasn't watched for about 5-6 years so it started right when Hollywood started lecturing us from their ivory towers AND their vile corruption started being brought to light.

 

[Beau Knows]

I think people simply don't care a whole lot about who wins an Oscar anymore.

It's not like people don't watch movies or worship celebrities anymore, they just don't care who the academy chooses to give little statues to.

We know more about how shady the campaigning process is and there's a million different online publications/youtubers/whatever with their own movie awards and rankings.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

It's all relative. From 1980 until 2014, viewership averaged 40M. Last year, it was 10M and even this year's 16M is less than half of what it was just 8 years ago. COVID likely had a lot to do with that, but 2020 (held before the world stopped) was only 24M, which is still well below the pre-2014 average. For those curious, the peak of viewership was 55M in 1998 (Titanic's year).

I think this trend is largely based on the decline of people paying for cable in favour of streaming services like Netflix. At least, that's why I didn't watch the Oscars.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The way to fix the Oscars is simple: Build a time machine.

Those ratings ain't ever coming back and any hang wringing about "fixes" that doesn't acknowledge the fact that streaming has radically changed how TV is consumed is disingenuous (I'm talking about reporting in the media more than folks like us just shootin' the shit). Politics and popular movies are convenient excuses for people who want that agenda advanced, but the cold reality is EVERYTHING is down.

This is a pretty basic comparison but look at the most popular shows of 2020:
100 Most-Watched TV Shows of 2020-21: Winners and Losers

Now here's 2010:
Full 2010-2011 TV Season Series Rankings

The #1 show last year (football) would've been 5th in 2010. Ok not bad.
#2 show (also football) would've been tied for 13th. Eh not great. But times change, right?
#3 show (still football!) would be 26th a decade earlier. Behind Bones.
#4 is tied between the first scripted show (This is Us) and the first reality show (Masked Singer). Compared with 2010 they'd be .... 81st a decade ago. Essentially tied with Community, which was in annual fight to stay on the air and The Cape which was canned after one season (but did, funny enough, make for an amusing running bit on Community).

So the MOST POPULAR scripted show in 2020 is watched by the same amount of people who watched The Cape, which was the 82nd most watched show and 57th most watched scripted show a decade earlier.

That's not HOLLWOOD'S TOO LIBERAL. That's not THEY DIDN'T NOMINATE MY FAVORITE SUPER HERO.

That's an evolutionary event that hit all of broadcast that folks for some reason still act like hasn't happened or hasn't hit the industry to the degree that it actually has.

There's an entire cornucopia of streaming options (legal and illegal) that did not exist before the last few years and there are more things to watch than we've ever had. Add in social media, which in a very real sense, has become yet another platform and series of programs (or people) we watch.

I think the Oscars can and probably will do better with ratings, but the old days (even five years) ago aren't coming back. I think everyone involved needs to adjust their expectations about what's possible in these times.

 

[SirClintonPortis]

The way to fix the Oscars is simple: Build a time machine.

Those ratings ain't ever coming back and any hang wringing about "fixes" that doesn't acknowledge the fact that streaming has radically changed how TV is consumed is disingenuous (I'm talking about reporting in the media more than folks like us just shootin' the shit). Politics and popular movies are convenient excuses for people who want that agenda advanced, but the cold reality is EVERYTHING is down.

This is a pretty basic comparison but look at the most popular shows of 2020:
100 Most-Watched TV Shows of 2020-21: Winners and Losers

Now here's 2010:
Full 2010-2011 TV Season Series Rankings

The #1 show last year (football) would've been 5th in 2010. Ok not bad.
#2 show (also football) would've been tied for 13th. Eh not great. But times change, right?
#3 show (still football!) would be 26th a decade earlier. Behind Bones.
#4 is tied between the first scripted show (This is Us) and the first reality show (Masked Singer). Compared with 2010 they'd be .... 81st a decade ago. Essentially tied with Community, which was in annual fight to stay on the air and The Cape which was canned after one season (but did, funny enough, make for an amusing running bit on Community).

So the MOST POPULAR scripted show in 2020 is watched by the same amount of people who watched The Cape, which was the 82nd most watched show and 57th most watched scripted show a decade earlier.

That's not HOLLWOOD'S TOO LIBERAL. That's not THEY DIDN'T NOMINATE MY FAVORITE SUPER HERO.

That's an evolutionary event that hit all of broadcast that folks for some reason still act like hasn't happened or hasn't hit the industry to the degree that it actually has.

There's an entire cornucopia of streaming options (legal and illegal) that did not exist before the last few years and there are more things to watch than we've ever had. Add in social media, which in a very real sense, has become yet another platform and series of programs (or people) we watch.

I think the Oscars can and probably will do better with ratings, but the old days (even five years) ago aren't coming back. I think everyone involved needs to adjust their expectations about what's possible in these times.

Isn't TV viewership performance more related to the Emmys?

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Isn't TV viewership performance more related to the Emmys?

The Oscars are a TV show though, so when we're talking about ratings, that's the measure of success or failure used for TV.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

It's also due to the fact that Hollywood has pretty much lost everyone with a brain who is a working class "middle" American. We are all tired of being preached out by these patronizing proselytizing pukes. It is no coincident that a close synonym of "actor" is "hypocrite."

My mom used to watch the Oscars, Grammys, etc. --- she hasn't watched for about 5-6 years so it started right when Hollywood started lecturing us from their ivory towers AND their vile corruption started being brought to light.

That's pretty much not true. We've been hearing this for decades but the truth is folks who lean right by and large still (and always have) consume Hollywood products because they too wanted to be entertained.

 

[Jussi]

Netflix Backs Away From Will Smith Film ‘Fast and Loose’ (Exclusive)

The project had already lost director David Leitch before the infamous Oscars slap, and now the streaming service has quietly moved the film to the back burner in the awards ceremony’s wake, according to sources.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Bad Boys 4 supposedly has also been put on hold. But hey, it's all fake and all publicity is good publicity!

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

The way to fix the Oscars is simple: Build a time machine.

Those ratings ain't ever coming back and any hang wringing about "fixes" that doesn't acknowledge the fact that streaming has radically changed how TV is consumed is disingenuous (I'm talking about reporting in the media more than folks like us just shootin' the shit). Politics and popular movies are convenient excuses for people who want that agenda advanced, but the cold reality is EVERYTHING is down.

This is a pretty basic comparison but look at the most popular shows of 2020:
100 Most-Watched TV Shows of 2020-21: Winners and Losers

Now here's 2010:
Full 2010-2011 TV Season Series Rankings

The #1 show last year (football) would've been 5th in 2010. Ok not bad.
#2 show (also football) would've been tied for 13th. Eh not great. But times change, right?
#3 show (still football!) would be 26th a decade earlier. Behind Bones.
#4 is tied between the first scripted show (This is Us) and the first reality show (Masked Singer). Compared with 2010 they'd be .... 81st a decade ago. Essentially tied with Community, which was in annual fight to stay on the air and The Cape which was canned after one season (but did, funny enough, make for an amusing running bit on Community).

So the MOST POPULAR scripted show in 2020 is watched by the same amount of people who watched The Cape, which was the 82nd most watched show and 57th most watched scripted show a decade earlier.

That's not HOLLWOOD'S TOO LIBERAL. That's not THEY DIDN'T NOMINATE MY FAVORITE SUPER HERO.

That's an evolutionary event that hit all of broadcast that folks for some reason still act like hasn't happened or hasn't hit the industry to the degree that it actually has.

There's an entire cornucopia of streaming options (legal and illegal) that did not exist before the last few years and there are more things to watch than we've ever had. Add in social media, which in a very real sense, has become yet another platform and series of programs (or people) we watch.

I think the Oscars can and probably will do better with ratings, but the old days (even five years) ago aren't coming back. I think everyone involved needs to adjust their expectations about what's possible in these times.

Good take. I like this post.