An article in today’s LA Times lays down some quotes on the Motion Picture Academy’s decision to increase the number of Best Picture nominees from 5 to 10.
For those wishing an historical perspective, you can see past Academy Awards TV ratings here. (which I have yet to update with 2009 numbers)
The truth:
Publicly, executives of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and ABC, which has broadcast the show annually since 1976, shrugged off the sinking ratings. But privately, they began looking at ways to make the broadcast more popular. The economics are simple: Without a large TV audience, ABC would be unable to continue demanding lofty prices for commercial time during the show. Those commercial rates in turn affect the licensing fee the network pays the academy, its principal source of income.
“Movies that have been nominated in recent years have been critically acclaimed but many were too obscure for the mainstream moviegoer,” said Shari Anne Brill, director of audience analysis for the ad-buying firm Carat. “Most moviegoers had never heard of these films, let alone seen them.”
Widening the field of movies jockeying for the big prize from five to 10, as the academy announced Wednesday, should help attract more viewers, and potentially more advertisers to the show.
The non-truths (emphasis mine):
Sid Ganis, president of the academy, said Wednesday that the motivation to change the rules was not concerns over ratings.
“That was not the purpose but, of course, there is the hope that there’ll be even more interest in the Oscars around the world,” Ganis said. “We have to think about that with the other side of our business. The show is important to us, but we are not going to turn ourselves upside down and backwards to accommodate the ratings.“
The hope:
“This is a huge positive from ABC’s perspective,” said Geri Wang, ABC senior vice president for prime-time sales. “It’s going to offer a broader palette of films being considered, and that should increase the interest in the show. Viewers, and the industry, will want to watch and root for their favorite films.”
It’s all about the money:
The academy’s decision this week was the second time in the last year that the board has changed its rules, in part to attract advertising to the show. In October, the academy lifted its more than 50-year-ban on movie studio advertising during the telecast to increase the pool of Oscar advertisers.
But try not to be too blatant about it:
It still plans to limit each movie studio to buying just one advertisement during the telecast to make sure that viewers at home don’t mistakenly believe that a studio that buys a lot of commercials might have an edge in the voting.
The tale of ratings woe:
In 1953, the first time the Oscars were televised, four out of every five TV sets turned on in America were tuned in. That year, “The Greatest Show on Earth” won best picture. By 1974, when the Nielsen Co. began measuring viewers, more than 44 million people watched when “The Sting” took the top prize.
In February, 36.3 million people watched as “Slumdog Millionaire” swept the Oscars. In 2008, 32 million viewers caught the show as “No Country for Old Men” was named best picture.
lots more at Los Angeles Times.
are they going to post the overnight ratings from last night, Wednesday?
“They” will, when they get them.
LOL!
how will this actually effect the outcomes? With 5 nominees you must figure that a lot of voters were casting their final vote for their second favorite films, but now with nominees spread out over 10 films, it hardly seems that the best film will be any sort of academy consensus. As a big moviegoer, it was always nice to see the small arthouse gem, that you discovered in February of the year before, come out of nowhere and grab a nomination, but more often then not the arthouse films that get nominated, are the shallow oscarbait films, with marketing budgets 3-5 times the size of the films filming budget. Hardly, small. You still have to dig for those.
Hopefully UP will get nominated this year, though.
Who’d like to make a bet that the Academy reverses course within two months?
Lame. This goes a long towards making getting nominated the opposite of a big deal/accomplishment. Even though it will lead to more nominated films, people still should realize that certain films nominated have no chance of actually winning.
This creates an interesting dynamic for best director. With only 5 dominations in that category a lot of directors of “oscar nominated” best film entries will not get nominated. There’s always a lot of complaints that directors don’t get recognition for their flims.
Wait… were the Oscars on last night?
I think they did it to finally give Pixar the Oscar they deserve for “Up”. Make room for titles that may have been kept out because there wasn’t room and there was another category to shove them in. A prediction nonetheless.
No matter what, 5 or 10 entries, the same winner will be chosen. I don’t really think this is anything but a money-making attempt. I HIGHLY doubt it will impact the actual results, since best picture is pretty much a lock from the beginning. My question is: The awards ceremony usually lasts 3 hours. Seeing as how the academy awards draws the show out so much, will the show now be 6 hours, or just FEEL like it?
I’d say that, given the huge increase in the number of channels (i.e. viewer choices) since the 1970s, that a drop from 44 million viewers to 32 million is acceptable.
I think that increasing the nominees enhances the possibility that a sub-standard movie will either win the Oscar or dilute the voting enough so that a less-deserving choice wins by default.
Anthony, you forget to factor in the population increase since the 70s. The population has grown by more than 100 million people.
If a movie like the Dark Knight can’t get a Best Picture nod with 5 noms, whats the point of making it 10? Just to shove in 5 popular movies that don’t have a chance of winning? Just having Wall-E, Tropic Thunder and/or The Dark Knight nominated isn’t going to help ratings if they don’t have a chance of winning.
This seems aimed more at giving studios more opportunity to say their movies are “Best Picture nominees!”
This is a travesty. Both the Emmys and the Oscar are showing signs of desperation over the ratings of their annual telecasts.
A better solution would be the following:
- Require a 60% distribution across the country to be considered for a Best Picture nomination
- Add a new category for independent films that don’t have the budget for such widespread distribution
- Increase the PERFORMANCE and DIRECTING nominees to Six or Seven
If they kick out needless edited packages and time-wasting production numbers (save for one at the top of the show), then they will have plenty of time for the expanded list of nominees and the additional category without going over three hours and without limiting acceptance speeches.
They would be better off cutting out the technical awards. The oscars are too boring.
Matt Yglesias makes the same point over at his blog: they need to change the voting process, otherwise it makes no difference if the same five arty pics are the only ones with a change of winning.
The Golden Globes basically have 10 movies for Best Picture. 5 for comedy/musical and 5 for drama. Having 10 movies instead of 5 nominated will just get more comedies and mainstream movies in.
Whoopee. Instead of having five obscure, foreign made Motion Pictures we’ll have ten of them up for the award. The Big Moneymakers will continue to get snubbed, and the apathy will continue.