Ever since Amazon Studios’ 2016 film Manchester by the Sea became the first movie from a streaming service to be nominated for a best picture Oscar, competitors have spent millions of dollars campaigning for a prize that has been out of reach.
Sian Heder’s CODA, which first premiered at a virtual Sundance Film Festival in winter 2021, started out as an underdog but gradually emerged as the Oscars’ feel-good favorite. It also had one very deep-pocketed backer in Apple TV+, which scored its first best picture Academy Award on Sunday, less than three years after launching the service. It also handed another near-miss defeat to Netflix, the veteran streamer that for years has tried vainly to score best picture. Its best chance, Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, came in with a leading 12 nominations. It won one, for Campion’s direction.
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.
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.
Exclusives
“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.
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.
For the first time ever, all four acting Oscar winners this year have current TV series, Bohemian Rhapsody‘s Rami Malek (USA’s Mr. Robot), The Favourite’s Olivia Colman (Netflix’s The Crown), Ali (True Detective) and Regina King (HBO’s upcoming Watchmen). It is the strongest indication yet of the blurring lines between film and television and a culmination in the process of television — once considered film’s far less prestigious ugly stepsister — evening the playing field.
After the chaos of the most unsettled Oscar season in recent memory, the show ended up being a vastly stronger offering than could have been expected. The show had a host — until, suddenly, it didn’t. It was going to cut four categories out, or relegate them to commercial breaks — until it wasn’t. Musical performances were reinstated and a stated strict time limit on speeches was evidently relaxed.
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 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.
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.
Just when you think the Oscars might be boring — a post-midnight twist makes them worth staying up for. After one of the more pleasant if predictable runs of show in recent Oscars history, a complete best picture upset stunned at Sunday night’s 89th Academy Awards, as La La Land — in the process of receiving the final and most prestigious Oscar of the night onstage — was interrupted by the revelation that the award in fact had been given to breakout Moonlight.
ABC said it was sorry for a series of online Oscar foul-ups Tuesday that incorrectly handed out nods and omitted at least one nominee.
Amazon’s Manchester by the Sea landed an Oscar nomination for best picture Tuesday, making Amazon the first streaming service to earn the honor.
The latenight host will be presiding over the Feb. 26 ceremony for the first time. Kimmel has been a regular awards host, having twice previously hosted the Emmy Awards (including its broadcast in September) and once led ESPN’s ESPY Awards.
The new deal will take the network’s live coverage of the film awards through the Academy Awards’ 100th anniversary.
Negotiations for ABC to extend its license agreement for the annual Oscar telecast are underway, but there’s a sticking point: ABC wants more creative input. ABC’s deal with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences already runs through 2020, but the two sides have been in talks for some time about an extension.
Returning after 11 years, Rock inherits a ceremony in crisis as the academy grapples with slipping viewership and problems with diversity.
ABC’s Academy Awards could pull in $120 million to $135 million in advertising revenues for this year’s broadcast. This is up from the $110 million the show pulled in a year ago, according to Kantar Media.
A movement to persuade viewers to boycott this year’s Oscars broadcast may be gaining steam, and while a mass tune-out could take a bite out of ABC’s ratings, it’s far less likely to have an impact on the network’s advertising business.
With five more years on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ current contract with ABC for the Oscars, the Academy is looking to extend it.
The show’s producers say the prolific comedian-filmmaker will be at the helm for the 88th Academy Awards on Feb. 28 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Producers David Hill and Reginald Hudlin called Rock “the MVP of the entertainment industry.”
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says David Hill and Reginald Hudlin will produce the 88th Oscars telecast. Hill is a 25-year Fox veteran […]
Nielsen’s preliminary estimate of U.S. viewership was down from the 43.7 million people who watched last year, a feel-good show where host Ellen DeGeneres attracted attention for posting a “selfie” with various movie stars and having pizzas delivered to the audience. This year’s Oscars audience was the lowest since 36.3 million watched in 2009, when Slumdog Millionaire won best picture.
REVIEW BY FRAZIER MOORE
Neil Patrick Harris Brought Sparkle To Oscars
Harris not only did himself proud, as expected after numerous triumphs presiding over the Tonys and Emmys. Even better, he stewarded an Oscarcast that made up in charm what it lacked in suspense.
ABC is nearing sell-out of its advertising inventory for its 2015 broadcast of the annual awards from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, according to two media-buying executives and other people familiar with the situation, even though it is seeking what may be some of the highest prices ever charged for the event. ABC is seeking around $1.9 million for a 30-second spot in the program, these people said.
Neil Patrick Harris has been selected to host the 87th annual Oscars. The Academy Awards will air live on ABC on Sunday, Feb. 22, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
Though host Ellen DeGeneres drew mixed reviews and people snarked on social media about the long running time for the broadcast, Sunday’s Academy Awards on ABC drew their biggest audience in a decade. The program averaged 43 million total viewers, up 6% from the 40.38 million who watched last year.
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Ellen DeGeneres’ goal of setting a retweet record with her star-studded selfie was achieved before the Oscars telecast was even over. During a comic bit, the […]
DMA 8 (WASHINGTON)
Oscar Fever Takes Over WTTG Morning News
T
witter has just secured another of its Amplify ad deals, this time with ABC, the last of the four major broadcast networks to sign up. The partnership will begin on Sunday night during the Oscars, with Samsung as the sponsor of a series of 10 promoted tweets featuring celebrity selfies taken from the green room, sent from the account of @TheAcademy.
ABC will use this Sunday’s Oscars telecast as a carrot to lure viewers to its Watch ABC mobile and web video services. But the Alphabet network is setting up a digital velvet rope: It will let only subscribers of participating pay-TV providers in eight markets watch the full show over the Internet.
Sold out for months, ABC announced a partial list of 14 advertisers for this year’s Academy Awards — including many longtime repeat marketers. With a price tag of $1.7 million to $1.8 million for a 30-second commercial, big event marketers and companies advertising include JCPenney, Johnson & Johnson, American Express, General Motors and Coldwell Banker.
NEW YORK (AP) – Comic and daytime television host Ellen DeGeneres was picked to host the Academy Awards for the second time. Show producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron announced […]
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Seth MacFarlane is too busy to host the Oscars in 2014. The multitalented comedian says on Twitter that he “tried to make it work schedule-wise, but […]
California Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal and Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, both Democrats who lead the legislature’s women’s caucus, sent a letter to Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Hawk Koch on Tuesday, requesting that the organization disavow Oscar host Seth MacFarlane’s behavior during last Sunday’s telecast.
