Academy Awards

An estimated 19.5 million people watched Sunday night’s 96th Academy Awards ceremony on ABC. That’s the biggest number drawn by the telecast in four years. But that upward trend comes from an all-time low during the pandemic, and is up just 4% from last year’s estimated audience of 18.7 million, according to numbers released Monday by ABC. Pictured: Ryan Gosling performs the song I’m Just Ken from the movie Barbie during the Oscars. (Chris Pizzello/AP)

Mstyslav Chernov’s 20 Days in Mariupol, a harrowing first-person account of the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, won the best documentary Oscar on Sunday night. Statuettes were awarded to Chernov, producer and editor Michelle Mizner and producer Raney Aronson-Rath. The Oscar — and nomination — was a first for both Chernov, an AP video journalist, and the 178-year-old news organization. This was the third nomination and first win for Frontline. Pictured: Raney Aronson-Rath (center), l-r: Vasilisa Stepanenko, Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka, Michelle Mizner and Derl McCrudden accept the award for best documentary feature film. (Chris Pizzello/AP)

The Academy Awards have long been a showcase for marketers, with the broadcast one of the few non-sports events to routinely rate among the most popular TV programs each year (the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is the other big one). Disney says that TikTok will sponsor a “first-of-its-kind red carpet live stream,” with tequila brand Don Julio sponsoring an “in-show moment.” Rolex and Bank of America will also be integrated into the broadcast, which will be hosted by ABC latenight host Jimmy Kimmel.

Here is a list of awards shows, events and the like as the film-awards conversation starts to pick up again.

The 96th Oscars will begin one hour early, with the official show starting at 7 p.m. ET for the first time, ABC said Thursday. The official pre-show will also begin earlier, at 6:30. The show has traditionally begun at 8 p.m. Despite various experiments to keep the runtime to three hours, the broadcast has sometimes stretched into the 11 o’clock hour.

Jimmy Kimmel is set to host the 96th Academy Awards, marking the fourth time and second straight year that the Jimmy Kimmel Live! mainstay has done the gig. The ceremony is March 10 on ABC.

The Academy Awards has a brand new home in the U.K. With pay TV giant Sky having given up its rights following a 20-year partnership, terrestrial broadcaster ITV has now stepped in and will be exclusive local home for the 2024 Oscars following a deal with Disney.

The 95th Academy Awards, which aired Sunday night on ABC, was viewed by an estimated 18.7 million, according to preliminary Nielsen numbers released Monday by ABC. That’s up 12% from last year’s show, but still low compared to most years. Above, host Jimmy Kimmel at the Oscars on Sunday, March 12, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Chris Pizzello/AP)

In a letter sent Tuesday to members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the group’s president, David Rubin, said that the awards for film editing, production design, sound, makeup and hairstyling, music (original score) and the three short film awards (documentary, live-action and animated) will be presented at the ceremony before the March 27 live broadcast begins on ABC.

The three comic forces appear to be the only emcees in the mix for the March awards show, despite several scenarios that telecast creatives have been weighing. Producer Will Packer has been in meetings for weeks trying to find the right recipe for Hollywood’s biggest night.

The Oscars will return with a host, three years after it last had one. The announcement came from Craig Erwich, president, Hulu Originals & ABC Entertainment, during his TCA executive session. The exec didn’t give any more details in terms of who will host the annual movie bash but joked that it might be him.

After a year of disruption, innovation and catastrophically low ratings, the Academy Awards are getting back to business as usual. The show will return to the Dolby Theatre for its ABC broadcast and the eligibility window will once again close at the end of the calendar year.

“We will look at all of the sponsorships across all of our business going forward and make sure that they reflect the potential and the audience,” Rita Ferro, Disney’s ad sales chief, says.

“The ratings for the Oscars plummeted from 23 million last year to less than 10 million this year. How can something so woke put so many people to sleep?” Jimmy Kimmel joked on Monday.

Netflix had a big night at the Oscars, bringing home a total of seven total trophies — leading all studios — although the streamer failed to grab the prize in the best picture category and came up empty in the acting categories. Netflix had come into Sunday night with 36 nominations, far more than any other studio.

ABC’s Academy Awards telecast may not draw as many viewers as it has in the past, but it will still air a full suite of commercials. The network has sold out all of its available advertising inventory for the annual awards event, Jerry Daniello, SVP, entertainment brand solutions, for Disney Advertising Sales, said in an interview. The company finalized its sales earlier this week, he said.

Live events like awards shows were supposed to be what saves broadcast TV. But even while they’re stuck at home in the middle of a pandemic, viewers have lost interest in kudocasts — and the ratings declines this year don’t bode well for the future of the form. The recent performance of the Golden Globes, Grammys and SAG Awards should make the producers of this month’s Oscars nervous. So far this year, year-to-year viewership for The CW’s Critics Choice Awards dropped 69%; NBC’s Golden Globes ceremony was down 62%; TNT and TBS’ simulcast of the SAG Awards dipped 52%; and CBS’s Grammys telecast fell 51%.

ABC has been seeking around $2 million for a 30-second spot in its April 25 broadcast of the 93rd annual Academy Awards, according to two people familiar with negotiations, and the network does not appear to be facing much resistance. Two media buyers with knowledge of the Disney outlet’s approach to Madison Avenue say they have not recently taken any pressure-filled calls from ad-sales executives eager to unload ad time as the event draws closer.

“Our plan is that this year’s Oscars will look like a movie, not a television show,” said show producers Jesse Collins, Stacy Sher and Steven Soderbergh in a statement Friday. They’ve enlisted Emmy and Tony Award winning director Glenn Weiss to direct the live broadcast on ABC on April 25.

After a pandemic year that shuttered most movie theaters, none of the expected best-picture nominees will have hardly any box office to speak of. It will be an Oscars not just without blockbusters but with many movies that have hardly played on the big screen. Streaming services are set to dominate Hollywood’s biggest and most sought-after awards. Nominations will be announced beginning at 8:19 a.m. ET and the film academy and ABC will telecast the Oscars on April 25 (delayed two months due to the pandemic).

Specific plans have yet to be unveiled for the show, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is “determined to present an Oscars like none other, while prioritizing the public health and safety of all those who will participate,” a spokesperson said.

There were no cameras or radio mics and just one speech. Even when it moved to TV, the show could be under two hours. When expectations set in, so did bloat.

The 93rd Academy Awards will now be held April 25, 2021, eight weeks later than originally planned. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors also decided to extend the eligibility window beyond the calendar year to Feb. 28, 2021, for feature films, and delay the opening of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures from December until April 30, 2021. The awards show will be telecast by ABC.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on Tuesday announced the change for the 93rd Academy Awards as a response to how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted the film industry. The film academy also said it will condense the two sound categories into one and prohibit DVD screeners for 2022’s 94th Oscars in an effort to become more carbon neutral.

Reports that Steven Spielberg intends to support rule changes that could block Netflix from Oscars-eligibility have provoked a heated, and unwieldy, debate online. It has found the legendary filmmaker at odds with some industry heavyweights, who have pointed out that Netflix has been an important supporter of minority filmmakers and stories, especially in awards campaigns, while also reigniting the ongoing streaming versus theatrical debate.

Queen and Adam Lambert opened with a medley followed by a monologue-esque series of jokes from Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph, who insisted they weren’t hosting.

With many returning advertisers, ABC has now sold out all commercial inventory in The”91st Oscars show. The Academy Awards remain the least-glutted awards show for paid commercial content — just 32 minutes of advertising time in 2018. Some marketers are paying a top 30-second commercial price tag of $2.6 million.

ABC is hoping to drive viewers to its host-less telecast of the 91st Academy Awards on Sunday by dangling the promise of cold, hard cash to one lucky winner. The broadcaster on will launch The Official Oscar Game, a live game that will let viewers play along in real time during the awards presentation. The game’s interactive ballot will allow fans to earn points by predicting Oscar winners in each category and will also pose trivia questions — with the top players eligible to win $50,000 in the grand prize drawing.

With no host for ABC’s Oscars — and a week to go before the big event — the network has been airing about the same number of TV show promos as a year ago, featuring primarily creatives focused on movies. So far, ABC has run 691 promo airings, yielding 329.2 million impressions through Feb. 18, according to iSpot.tv.

Walt Disney’s ABC has sold more than three-quarters of its commercial inventory for its Feb. 24 broadcast of the glitzy awards fest, according to Jerry Daniello, SVP, entertainment brand solutions, for Disney ad sales, pacing ahead of its progress at this time last year. He declined to comment on the price of a spot in the event, but two media buyers familiar with negotiations for advertising in the event say ABC is seeking between $2 million and $3 million for a 30-second spot.

Hart stepped aside just about an hour after refusing to apologize for homophobic tweets that resurfaced after he was announced as Oscars host on Tuesday. In a video on Instagram, Hart said the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences gave him an ultimatum: apologize or “we’re going to have to move on and find another host.”

The Academy Awards could eventually go to a streaming service, because, as some stakeholders believe, “TV is going nowhere.” The growing sense of broadcast obsolescence is why key people at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences have begun to talk quietly about taking their valuable telecast to a streaming service.

Days after the 90th Academy Awards telecast aired in March to record-low viewership, Disney-ABC Television Group executives met with leaders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to convey a message: You are facing irrelevance. So on Tuesday night, the board voted to move the Oscars up to Feb. 9, 2020; to cap the telecast length at three hours by moving several awards categories into commercial breaks; and to create a “popular film” category, the criteria for which has not yet been divulged.