News
Oscar telecast light on majors' support
Updated Feb. 24 with telecast audience rating and "starless night" analysis
By Robert Marich
Feb. 22, 2008 – The Oscar telecast on ABC Television was light on movie commercials, despite the lifting of a decades-old ban on film ads, with the only drama being that Disney changed the film getting its largesse.
Disney bought a 60-second ad for romantic comedy The Proposal, which is its not-yet-rated June 12 release starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. The other film spot was Paramount 30-second commercial for PG-13 social drama The Soloist, which is an April 24 release (after being postponed from 2008).
Weeks ago, it was reported that the Disney spot would be for it animated Pixar feature Up, which did not materialize. Walt Disney Studio was probably arm-twisted to buying the Oscars for some movie to help out ABC Television, which is a sister company.
Because of weak demand amid recession, a 30-second Oscar spot cost $1.4 million, which is down several hundred thousand dollars from a year ago. The Oscars is known as “the Super Bowl for women” audience because of its huge viewership that tilts female.
The Soloist is a good-for-you film about a newspaper man who writes up a street person that is an accomplished musician (and looks as authentic as a $3 bill).
The Soloist, Warner’s romantic comedy He’s Just Not That Into You (Feb. 6 premiere) and Universal’s thriller Duplicity (March 20) got ads in Barbara Walter’s interview special in the run-up to the Oscars. Also in the Walter’s special, Fox bought a 15-second ad for the DVD release of Australia and Warners for video-on-demand telecast of Nights in Rodanthe.
Other big in-Oscars advertisers were Coke, Sprint, MasterCard, retailer JCPenney, carmakers Hyundai and Audi, and pharmaceuticals including Zrytec.
The Oscars telecast seemed an improvement over recent years, except for spill-over length. Host Hugh Jackson was a steadying influence, and his film-star glamour is a good fit compared to the too-hip and self-absorbed hosts Jon Stewart and Ellen Degeneres of past years.
But even Jackman can’t save the Oscars from its gradual decline in importance as it gravitates to indie films – Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire is an example (its U.S. distributor Fox Searchlight handles indie films, though is part of a major studio). Only The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was the only true major-studio film, among the five Best Picture nominees.
In another misstep, the Oscar organizers gave Bill Maher a platform as a presenter where he twice plugged his not-nominated documentary shamelessly while also insulting religion. This gratuitous knock reflects another disconnect from the Middle America audience.
A pre-Oscar story in the New York Times indicates the major studios are cooling to the Oscars because of its drift away from mainstream audiences. This could create an economic squeeze for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which relies on Oscar revenue to fund operations. The lack of major studio ads in the ABC telecast may be an indication.
The telecast's average audience was 13% above last year's rock bottom low, so this bounce is a relief to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. But the 2009 telecast -- which averaged 36.3 million viewers -- was still down 9.7% from 2007, indicating audience drift from the Oscars.
In a post-Oscar article, the New York Times called the awards ceremony “Starless Movie’s Starry Night,” in a nod to the eight-Oscar haul by Slumdog Millionaire. “It was breathtaking to see a starless, partly subtitled film from halfway around the world sneak past so many carefully confected and well-financed studio efforts,” noted the NY Times article by David Carr. “Despite all the planning and guile of production executives, directors, producers and marketing executives, movie magic is still something that occurs in the space between the audience and the screen at the front of the room.”