When only 20 percent of your own Academy members view the Oscar telecast positively, Oscar has a big, big problem on its hands.
Entertainment journalist Kris Tapley reports that Academy CEO Bill Kramer held an “all-hands meeting” on the 17th and discovered that “just over half the membership admitted to watching the whole show.”
It gets worse…
“From our recent member survey, we learned from our Academy members that they did not love the 94th Oscars,” Kramer added. “It had a 20 percent positivity rating, compared to 61 percent for the 92nd; only 2 percent liked the Fan Favorite; only 17 percent approved of the pre-recorded awards.”
You would think this would be bigger news, but the corporate entertainment media does not report on Hollywood; it palace guards for Hollywood.
Just a few years ago, the annual Oscar telecast would attract 30 to 40 million viewers. In March, that number dropped to a humiliating 15.4 million. And that wasn’t even the worst. It was the second worst. The previous year, viewership tanked to 10.4 million.
For context, back in 2017, when viewership dropped to 33 million, that was considered a catastrophe.
The Academy is probably even more worried than usual. No one expected this year’s Emmys to collapse entirely with only 5.9 million viewers. Ten years ago, the Emmys attracted 20 million viewers.
The American public is increasingly turned off by a celebrity class that 1) hates us customers, 2) uses every opportunity to shame, lecture, and yell at us, and 3) constantly poses as victims of racism or sexism for homophobia or mental health—and this non-stop cry-babying from the most privileged people in the world is beyond off-putting.
The entertainment industry, most especially the Oscars, has lost the goodwill of the American public and is so insulated that no one seems interested in recapturing it. Twitter has removed the all-important Hollywood mystique. These people not only have no class but no desire to entertain us. They see themselves as above entertaining us rubes. Instead, they are here to set us straight.
Man alive, they are all just so awful.
Anyway, the Academy has come up with a hilarious eight-point plan to fix the telecast. As you will see below, the list mentions nothing about being entertaining and, therefore, will not fix anything….
- Hiring producing teams who are accountable to the Academy and creating a dedicated team within the Academy solely focused on the Awards
- Determining how to best honor all craft areas on air
- Focusing on a love and reverence for film
- Creating an emotional investment in the nominees
- Exploring extensions of the show on streaming
- Continuing the theatrical requirement for eligibility
- Making the red carpet an event
- Continuing to prioritize sustainability, access, inclusion, and representation
The last one is my favorite. Nothing promises a good time like “sustainability” and “inclusion.”
Yeah, that’s what the American people are longing for in next year’s Oscar telecast — sustainability.
If you want to recycle something, you bubbled idiots, bring Bob Hope, Billy Crystal, or Johnny Carson back.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.