No, the most boring awards ceremony on the planet isn't dying.

But you wouldn't be wrong to think that the Oscars just survived its worst year in recent memory. The ratings weren't just bad, they were apocalyptic. I didn't see it and in a quick informal poll around the office, no one else saw it either.

As Reuters put it, This past year's Oscar's was the least watched Oscars telecast ever.



The question on everyone's mind is
a) is this a trend, will next year's ceremony be even worse?
and
b) why, what caused this? Does this mean something about movies in general?

Well it has been variously argued that the writers strike, Chris Andersen's Long Tail theory (in which blockbusters become the smaller half of the market), the emergence of netflix & on demand, movie piracy, and a million other circumstantial details have derailed the ceremony.

But the most obvious cause appears to be the one that the math indicates is most true:

There were no hit movies.

To test this hypothesis, here is a scatterplot that measures box office receipts against # of Oscar-watchers.



Basically, if you have a Titanic block buster in 1998, then you will get more viewers. Or, if you have a lot of stars that people care about contesting an Oscar, then the tension is worth watching. (even if the movies weren't all that good, people want to see their favorite stars pout, I guess.)

So to those who are bemoaning the poor woe-some fate of the movie industry the way others bemoan the poor fate of the music industry, I say this: give us good stuff, don't treat us like pirates, and we will show up.

A side point is worth mentioning as The Wire ends its 5 year odyssey: TV is kicking ass these days, I would watch the best TV over the best movies any day of the week - but this didn't necessarily help the Golden Globes.

To see this topic in more depth, see this excellent blog post from conde nast.

Labels: movies, oscar