THB #605: 23W2O - Part 4: Fixing The Show Again

It’s always helpful to read something really dumb to get me thinking about what would really be smart.

The latest comes from Puck Schmuck Matt Belloni, who had someone whisper stuff in his ear which he is incapable of processing in any objective way. He keeps leaning towards his own childish notion of how to improve ratings

“The plan does not include eliminating any of the 23 categories from the live telecast, which I’ve long argued is the only way to truly reinvent the show for a modern audience.”

“I’ve advocated turning the Oscars into a night of exclusive trailers and footage of upcoming blockbusters.”

Matt appear incapable of understanding that if you turn the show into something other than what it is, it is no longer The Oscars and it will lose whatever value it has left. We can discuss the mess than the Television Academy has made of the Primetime Emmys some other time.

And if Belloni really believes that 20 million or more people are going to tune in for a night of trailers and footage - which of course, would all be online within minutes of thousands of other platforms - I bet that Comcast would be happy to sell Puck their E! channel so he can chase those 10s of millions of easily drawn consumers instead of the 150k average that the channel draws in primetime.

But back to the business at hand…

A much bigger part of the problem is that The Academy has had a really hard time seeing itself in the mirror for years now.

It was not the politics or social significance of #OscarSoWhite that created this problem itself, but rather that the defensive panic The Academy went into in 2016 coincided with a ratings panic it was already in. In 2014, 22 million more people watched The Oscars than The Golden Globes, more than doubling the HFPA’s viewership. In 2015, that number slipped to 18 million, even with the Globes ratings down more than 5%. Then, in that same season as #OscarSoWhite, the Globes ratings dropped again, to 18.5 million viewers… but The Oscars slipped all the way to 34.4 million, it’s lowest pull in over a decade.

All the alarms were ringing. The organization was being publicly accused of being racist and sexist - which it was - but even worse, the ratings were dropping fast.

After the 2005 Oscars, it turns out, was the end of the days when the assumption was that the domestic audience number for the show would be over 40 million viewers. Before that, the show went 17 years with only 1 show with under 40 milion viewers.

In the 19 Oscars after that, the show would get to 40m+ viewers 4 more times… but mixed in with shows in the 30 million range.

Oscar would fall into the 20 million+ viewership range for the first time in modern history in 2018, never to see 30 million viewers again.

And starting with the infamous off-date COVID show at the train station in 2021, the show has not seen 20 million viewers for any of its broadcasts.

Meanwhile, while The Academy has improved significantly in membership for women and international filmmakers, it has more than doubled its overall membership, undermining its exclusivity as an awards focal point… while still being pitifully soft in the percentage of filmmakers of color in the organization working in the American industry compared to national demographics… blacks (14% of the U.S. population), asians (6%), and latinos/hispanics (20%).

But honestly, in terms of publicity, The Academy managed perception of the concerns that the organization was racist and sexist. The fire, while smouldering a bit, is mostly out.

The show sliding in to the toilet in the ratings… not at all.

The fixes we have seen have all been along the lines of ideas that show no real impact. The host, the music guests, trying to shorten or eliminate some category presentations, more stunts, less stunts, even going without a host.

None of them have really moved the bar at all.

As far as hosts go, if you look at the numbers in context, this becomes clear. In the 10 years before 2016 - Crash to Birdman - the range is 32 million viewers to 44 million viewers. 12 million is a lot. But take away the lowest rating - No Country/Jon Stewart - and the range is just 7 million. Ellen DeGeneres hosted the 2 most viewed shows (40m/44m), followed by Steve Martin/Alec Baldwin (42m), and Seth MacFarlane (40m)… all the shows at 40m or over. But then you have to figure out whether more people watched the show for the host or the movies or the previous show.

Personally, I think DeGeneres did draw a few million extra sets of eyeballs. But the first time she hosted, ratings “only” went up by 1.2 million viewers. The 2nd time, she added 3 million.

What’s frustrating is that The Oscars had a little momentum going with 4 straight years ticking up, from a drop to 38m in the Franco/Hathaway year to the rise Billy Crystal’s return in 2012 (39m) to MacFarlane (40m) to DeGeneres (44m). But then, it slid by 6 million viewers with Neil Patrick Harris in 2015… a number - 37.3 million - they have never seen again.

Rock dropped… Kimmel dropped twice… they got a rise with no host, but then a drop… and then COVID. The numbers for Kimmel the last 2 shows were marginally better than the 3some show of Hill, Schumer, Sykes… and Slap.

Thing is… it doesn’t much matter who the host is.

Go back as far as 1958, when the hosts were Bob Hope, David Niven, James Stewart, Jack Lemmon, Rosalind Russell, and Donald Duck.

1959, it was Hope and Niven, plus Tony Randall, Mort Sahl, Laurence Olivier, and Jerry Lewis.

Hope went solo for 7 of the next 8 shows, followed by… No Host for 3 years. Then back to groups. Carson did 5 of 6 shows in a row. More groups.

Then we got into the Billy, Whoopi, Steve period, in which only 1 Oscar show - Letterman’s - was hosted by anyone but one of that trio.

And we’re back to 2005. Please make sure to take all of your personal items.

So… the host doesn’t matter. Maybe marginally, but not in any game-changing way.

But I should note this… the 4 shows from 1990 - 1993 when it was all Billy Crystal… the audience grew a little every year. Because it is a television show. And people tune into to shows they liked the last time. Even now.

That is what The Academy has to find again. Apparently, Kimmel is not that guy anymore. They can paddle along without a host. The idea of John Mullaney hosting was, perhaps, the most single stupid idea that The Academy has come up with… ever. Worse than the Most Money Oscar. No matter how much you like him and the super-dry funny-because-it’s-not-funny thing, they aren’t hiring a host for a party… they need someone to connect with more people than will pay to see The Brutalist, not less.

And by the way… that notion that the Oscar hosting gig was ever super-attractive to high-end talent is bullshit. Billy Crystal begged off when he did because he worried that his movies were being damaged by his successful appearances… the Oscar guy instead of the movie star. And maybe he was right. Not to be unkind, but his last hit movie was in 2002.