In Contention
By Josh Spiegel
February 15, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com

For those of you still enjoying the afterglow of Valentine's Day, this should keep it going.
With just under two weeks left until the Academy Awards are presented live on ABC, we’re all in a period of waiting. While a few guilds are still announcing their awards, the biggest ones, the ones that everyone pays attention to, have come and gone. This past Sunday, the BAFTAs, the British version of the Oscars, were announced, and there were few surprises here. The King’s Speech won both as Best Film and Best British Film (a nice way for the Brits to tell us to suck it, as their movies were best EVERYWHERE this year). It also won for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, and, oh, Best Craft Services. However, David Fincher won for Best Director, which could potentially mean he’s got a solid shot at the Oscars. But you never know.

Many people have argued in other venues that the Oscars shouldn’t take place so far down the line. In terms of the calendar year, of course, the end of February isn’t that far off. But in terms of the new world of popular culture, when news can be old hat within a week, leaving the Oscars to last is almost like being the last person at a party. Do people care about the Oscars at all, or are we all just somehow programmed to get kind of interested? While some of the big Oscar movies are doing great at the box office — The King’s Speech and Black Swan have impressed at the multiplexes for weeks now — with the opening of spring event movies like Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (Even Though I Just Said It Twice) and Just Go With It, have audiences forgotten about the awards season?

Again, I keep coming back to the idea that maybe audiences just don’t care. I’m very curious to see what the ratings for this year’s show are. In the past 15 years, the Oscar ratings have gone as high as 57 million viewers (for the film year 1997, when Titanic, then the highest-grossing film ever, was up for Best Picture) and as low as 31 million viewers (for the film year 2007, when No Country For Old Men was the victor). Last year’s show jumped up to over 41 million viewers; certainly, part of that could be due to there being ten Best Picture nominees, but the true test comes this year. Last year, the rivals at the top included the now highest-grossing film ever, Avatar. The highest-grossing films in this year’s nominees, Inception and Toy Story 3, have just about no shot of winning.

Also, it’s worth pointing out that the show’s length may have little to nothing to do with the ratings. The old gag is that the Oscars — and, honestly, every awards show under the sun — runs way over its scheduled time and isn’t that the worst? The telecast in early 2008, where No Country For Old Men won, managed to be one of the shortest in the last 25 years, despite being so low-rated. What will always matter is if people — not just those folks like us who may be tuned in on Twitter or on other film blogs, following the ups and downs of the season — care about the movies being nominated. A lot of people have seen and loved The King’s Speech — but a lot of them are older viewers, and advertisers could give a toss about old folks in the TV world.

So, should the Oscars be aired earlier in the season? We started in mid-January, with the Golden Globes being aired and gaining much controversy, thanks to Ricky Gervais’ caustic performance as host. It’s unlikely — based not only on the personalities of James Franco and Anne Hathaway, but by some of their comments — that the Oscar hosts will do the same. What’s more, one theme of the season that’s pervaded pretty much all of popular culture (a bit hyperbolic, sure, but I’d be willing to agree that it’s true) will work against high ratings: there are no surprises. The King’s Speech, Aaron Sorkin, Natalie Portman, Colin Firth, Christian Bale, and so on: these are among your winners. If I can tell you that now with about, say 99% confidence, why watch? Though viewers may not be that reticent, some people may watch just as a force of habit, nothing else.

There is, surprisingly, precedent for moving the Oscar telecast up in the calendar year, but you have to go back to the beginning. In 1930, there were two Oscar telecasts: one for 1928-1929 and one for 1929-1930. Certainly, there can’t be an Oscar telecast that early in the year unless the Academy changed the eligibility timeline, something I can’t imagine they’d be okay with, even considering their recent odd choices. Once the eligibility timeline changed, most of the Oscar telecasts aired in March — some were even in April, most recently the telecast in 1988 for the year in film in 1987. The Academy should strongly consider it, if only because they probably want to remain relevant. The Academy assumes it’s always going to be relevant, because it’s the Academy. But it’s one thing if, for example, the Super Bowl is in early February. Everyone’s going to watch. The Oscars don’t have the luxury of assuming the same.

I’d suggest that the Academy set a new standard, and air the Oscars the weekend after the Super Bowl. There’s no way, of course, that the two events would be shared on the same week or night (which is more likely). With the proliferation of cable channels and niche audiences, there’s no reason for the Oscars to think they can gain the same massive Super Bowl viewership (for those who didn’t see, this past game was the most popular TV program…ever). What the Oscars can do is make the awards season more bearable, and perhaps even tighter. The Golden Globes could still air near MLK Day, but why should the Oscars wait so long? They’ve gotten better in the past couple of years, but there’s a point where waiting for the awards to drop — surprises or not — is just dull.

The Oscars should never be dull. Obviously, the Academy can’t help it if one film or another dominates the awards circuit, whether it be critics lining up behind one movie or guilds lining up behind another. Waiting for the inevitable is always dull, though. Sure, the Oscars could be filled with twists, turns, and shocks. The likelihood is low, and even if they do come, most people may not watch because they assume they’ll be bored with the expected victors. You may disagree with the Academy’s decision to expand the Best Picture category from five to ten nominees, but it is a shake-up. What the Academy needs to do now is look at the 2010 awards season, learn from its mistakes, and move its schedule further. Valentine’s Day weekend, or even Presidents’ Day weekend, would be a perfect time to say hello to a new Oscar telecast.