Contrary to what some people may think, network television is still largely relevant. However, its main audience is mostly made up of people from older generations, with younger demographics declining in recent years. According to data shared by MarketingCharts.com in May 2021, “youths’ traditional TV viewing” was down in “both live and time-shifted TV.” Meanwhile, 50-64-year-olds, for example, only declined by around 10 minutes per day, and the 65+ demographic was up in viewership compared to the previous year. At the end of the day, this is an issue for studios since the rating system has stayed the same, and the advertising demographic that “matters” remains the 18-49-year-old cohort.
This means that TV programmers are desperately working to attract younger audiences. As the statistics show, they haven’t been all that successful, and younger people are still favoring streaming and other online options over the traditional television model — but that hasn’t stopped executives from trying. Far too often, though, their efforts end up being a lose-lose situation; not only do they fail to bring in a substantial amount of new viewers, but they also seemingly end up losing a lot of their historically loyal ones.
The 2022 Oscars are the latest example of this ongoing problem. The push for more focus on hosts and montages instead of actual award presentations has the core audience tuning out and the crowd they’re trying to attract laughing in their faces.
Right now, the main complaint is about the removal of eight live award presentations in favor of what appears to be more film clip montages and segments featuring the ceremony’s three hosts (whose announcement did not receive the best response from the public: Amy Schumer has had most of the vitriol thrown her way, while Wanda Sykes and Regina King have received what seems to be a resounding “meh”). All of this is said to have been decided in order to keep the show at a tight three hours, which has also been none-too-pleasing to people who are actual fans of the Oscars.
The one change the Academy Awards have made that the younger demo actually seems to care about to some extent is the Fan Favorite Award. The Academy is encouraging fans to vote for their favorite movie of the year on Twitter using the hashtag #OscarsFanFavorite. Since all it takes to vote is to post or retweet a tweet using the hashtag, however, it’s predictably become a battle between hardcore “stan” communities.
Today is the LAST DAY to vote for this years #OscarsFanFavorite and #OscarsCheerMoment. https://t.co/n8B4JtMXW0
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) March 3, 2022
This has turned what was clearly intended as a thinly-veiled excuse to give Spider-Man: No Way Home an award after the fan disappointment of it not being nominated for Best Picture into a contest between Cinderella starring Camila Cabello (powered by her army of hardcore fans) and Zack Snyder’s Justice League (with strong backing from the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut crowd).
Honestly, this is what the Academy deserves for trying so desperately to pander to a crowd that, in all honesty, probably won’t even end up tuning in to the ceremony in droves regardless of how many times they voted on Twitter. Slightly shortening the runtime of the Oscars or throwing in more clips and jokes isn’t going to be nearly enough to sway uninterested people from watching the event, but enough alterations like this will drive those who do enjoy the Academy Awards for what they are at their core away from watching live.
There’s plenty that the Academy could be doing in order to appeal to a wider audience without even changing the actual content of the ceremony; namely, having it stream live online or via a paid streaming service simultaneously with the television broadcast. This won’t help with ratings, of course, but those are arguably a sinking ship and the best bet for the vast majority of traditionally televised content is to ensure it maintains the audience it already has rather than trying too hard to attract new people, at least in the TV format.
As for the Fan Favorite Award, if they insist on having it and don’t want it to be a total joke, they need to make it harder for fandoms to hijack by limiting the number of votes per account or email address. Or better yet, do away with it and honor the popular movies not nominated for awards with creative small nods or having someone come out dressed in a Spider-Man costume or something. There’s a certain prestige to the Academy Awards that these changes — especially the Fan Favorite Award — are taking away from. All of this is turning the Oscars into “just another award ceremony” which is probably the exact opposite of what the organizers were trying to achieve.
