Oscars: 'We may have to get used to smaller audiences,' says Academy exec
Feb 27, 2008, 09:45 PM | by Nicole Sperling
Categories: Movie Biz
On Sunday, Feb. 24, the Academy Awards telecast earned its lowest audience rating on record, plummeting 21 percent from last year. Is the Oscars in crisis? And what, if anything, can the Academy do to turn the tide? EW.com spoke with Bruce Davis, executive director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was the reaction at the Academy when you got the ratings numbers on Monday?
BRUCE DAVIS: That's kind of a foggy day for a lot of us, but there was some phoning back and forth. We were startled that they were as low as they were. Because we had small and dark pictures this year, we all thought we wouldn't hit 40 million [viewers] again. But I never talked to anyone here who expected it to fall off as much as it did.
Can you tell from the ratings when people tuned in, and when they tuned off?
There was a lot of shuffling, people tuning in and then moving away and then coming back. But the main problem was that a huge part of the traditional audience just never showed up.
How does this low rating affect the Academy's contract with ABC to broadcast the show?
It's not important in the sense that the network won't pay us as much
next year. We have a contract that runs through 2014. But the next time
we negotiate a contract, if this is an ongoing trend, it may well have
some effect.
How does the contract work?
It is a licensing fee, but there is some revenue sharing if they sell
commercial spots for more than was expected when we were predicting
income [at the time the contract was negotiated].
Everyone has theories about what caused the ratings drop. Some
say it was the movies. Some say the lack of stars. Some say the
writers' strike hurt the award season. What do you think caused this?
I don't think the writers' strike had much to do with it. I think Jon
Stewart did a terrific job. The things we could control went pretty
well. The length of the show was good. We had some really memorable
acceptance moments. I do think, finally, that the trend of the studios
making big action pictures and the specialty houses making small,
prestige movies is sort of catching up to us.
How so?
Some of these movies are just too difficult for a mass audience,
frankly. And if we have moved into an era where there's this dichotomy
between big popular studio movies and smaller pictures for more
specialized audiences, we may just have to get used to smaller
audiences [for the Oscar telecast.] This could be a one-year blip but
it doesn't look like one. It looks like something that has been
developing over the past few years. It's as if the National Book Awards
had to make a choice between giving awards to very serious fiction or
to the most popular bestsellers. We've come to that point where there
are two kinds of movies, and we're focusing on the ones which, almost
by definition, aren't going to be blockbusters.
So should the Academy try to be more populist?
[Speaking tongue-in-cheek] We could try to get all the members to vote for the big popular pictures but I don't think we can do that.
What motivates most people to watch the Oscars? Is it the movies? The fashion?
ABC did a series of focus groups a couple of years ago. Prior to that,
we all assumed that a horse race — a year when nobody knew what was
going to win Best Picture or Best Actress — would [drive ratings up].
Our assumption was completely wrong. When we asked people in the focus
groups, people who described themselves as regular Oscar viewers, how
many of them saw all five best picture nominees, no hands would go up.
How many saw four? No hands would go up. Three? You'd get a couple
people. [We realized] that they're watching the Oscars for the aspects
of the show that we've all been a little embarrassed by: They like the
red carpet and the movie stars. Many years, it doesn't matter if
they've seen the films or not. Somehow this year, it did.
The show has been on an overall, general ratings decline for
decades now. If the Oscar telecast never regains its ratings dominance
— if this is the new reality from no on — does it change the kind of
show you're able to put on?
For the next few years, absolutely
not. But that's an interesting question. At some point in the future
will we be looking at a different kind of awards show? That's
conceivable. We gave out Oscars before there was any television
broadcast at all, we may have to live with doing something for a much
more restrictive audience. We will see.
Is your primary mission to put on a profitable TV show, or to reward the best film work of the year, ratings or no?
We recognize that it's a television show, but emphatically we come down
on the other side of your question. If we simply wanted to do a
television show, we would cut out all the awards that didn't go to
actors and directors. We know that a one-hour show like that would
attract a larger audience, but we're not doing that. And it's not
because we're too dumb to know that people aren't fascinated by who
wins Best Production Design.
All awards show ratings have been in decline recently. Why do you think that is?
Not only has the TV dial fragmented and re-fragmented, but you have
competition from other home entertainment. That the ratings have
drifted downwards isn't surprising to anybody. The nice thing is that
there are so few shows that can gather as large an audience as the
Oscars can. Sponsors are very eager to have that crowd even though it's
not as large as it used to be.
Do you expect to do any soul searching about how the show works?
We always analyze the show. We have a special committee meeting where
we talk to the producer, and then another meeting where we have the
Academy governors look at the show. Those meetings are usually about
how the show can be better. This year, the issue is people [not
watching the show at all.] I imagine we'll talk about that, but the
range of options is narrow.
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