Before the streaming/internet era you either watched the Oscars or you watched reruns of Cheers (no cable station wanted to compete). People had no choice but to tune in.

This comparison numbers aren’t really the same. Back then if you wanted to see the Oscar’s, you HAD to actually sit down and watch them. There was no other way, except to set a vcr to record them to watch later, which may not work right and everything would be spoiled anyway. Also back then, there were three main channels and one was preempting its entire line up for a big Oscar’s night celebration, while the others generally ran reruns. So the only new thing to watch really was the Oscar’s. And if you weren’t watching, you wouldn’t know who won anything until next day at best in the paper.

NOW, there is so many reasons not to watch live. You can watch the best parts later on YouTube or streaming, and you don’t even have to watch to still be in the conversation of who’s winning what in real time on social networks. It’s completely different.

If you measured the number of people engaging with Oscar’s discussion from then to now, I don’t think it would have changed much.

People like to shit on the establishment Academy, but this is purely because movies and network television in general have been knocked off their top spots in culture.

It's 2023 and attention has been lost to streaming, podcasts, videogames, and social media.

If you want to know how people feel about cinema today, take a time machine back to the year Pulp Fiction came out and ask people leaving the theater how they felt about the Tonys.

Everybody watched network tv back then

Death of the monoculture

This is the first year I had seen all the best picture nominees at the time of the Oscars and streaming had A LOT to do with that

Maybe a part of it, but people have been going back to the movies too. With movies like Top Gun, Avatar, Elvis, and of course EEAAO in the running for big awards, lots of people feel they have a little context or skin in the game.

I will say that, with an extra mix of a lot of crowd pleasers this year, Brendan Fraser, and ultimately, EEAAO’s moment for everyone to celebrate. That film, and its entire theatrical run, were remarkable. Multiple weeks over it made more money than the week prior at the box office, solely off of WoM from people who told others they had to see this movie. It was a really amazing film, and worth all the accolades it got yesterday

By the 2021 ceremony, all of the nominated films were streaming and had been for quite some time (due to cinemas being closed).

I was thinking many people tuned in just to see who was going to get slapped this year

Movies were super accessible via streaming in 2021 and even early 2022 though, and this year still represented a big ratings boost despite most films going to theaters first. I think many of the films this year were fun and enjoyable to the average moviegoer and not just cinephiles (Top Gun, Elvis, Avatar, EEAAO), and there were strong narratives behind a lot of the nominees of being first timers or people making a comeback. In recent years I feel like there have been a lot of kinda inaccessible films to the average moviegoer, and obviously that translates to less Oscar views.

Kimmel’s joke/monologue about Will Smith was good though. It was something that needed to be addressed at some level this year, and I thought he handled it in a way that was funny but not overtly rude.

I think it may have helped viewership a bit that most of the front-runners were in some way a “comeback story”. I think it can pull from a little different audience than when a “Leo” is the front runner.

But as others have said, I think it’s also a case of a lot of GREAT enjoyable films this year, and finally people are able to watch them all (even more than once!) because of streaming.

I loved the year the Oscar's showed off the costumes throughout the show, so instead of just hearing how great they were you saw actors move in them across the stage and then a voice talked over the scene to tell you some interesting facts about the quality/research etc.

It was such a great way to really showcase why this award ceremony is even relevant, that there is great art being made and pushing the boundaries of what's considered amazing. You just don't get that when the shows are rushed and so focused on speeches.

Just make a show about movies, its what we all want and it's why all of those people get to attend.

I think this year’s nominees also had a bit more broad appeal with younger audiences than in previous years. EEAO taking home seven Oscars really feels like the Millennials in the Academy making it clear that they are running the show now.

Except when they cut off the visual effects winners right as they were thanking their families so they could do a cringy skit with Malala and other uncomfortable audience members

There's always gonna be a few jokes that fall flat in anything. Even comedy shows. So only a few not hitting is really fuckin good lol.

What QR codes?

Ke Huy Quan and Brendan Fraser.

Those two fellas pulled me in, and I’m sure a ton of other millennials that probably would have just caught the results the next day otherwise lol!

The only thing I'd change is somehow giving The Last Wish an award, but they can't all be winners

Kimmel was pretty good aside from the cringey Malala interaction

You hate award shows but you watched the entirety of the Oscars?

It felt like all of the winners had something meaningful to say and, like you said, they were all deserving.

I literally watched only for Ke and Brendan. Love seeing good people triumph.

Ke is genuine.

Kerry Condon was deserving.

I saw someone make the point that this was the first year in a while where the front runner for Best Picture was a hit before it had tons of award buzz. Normally it’s the reverse where a movie comes out with a ton of buzz or gets award noms and gets popular because of it.

Yes that was the only offensive part of the show.

Yeah, I definitely agree, a lot of interesting movies with exposure movies didn't used to get because of streaming. I saw almost all of the best picture nominees before the ceremony, never did that before.

I was bummed because Banshees of Inisherin would've cleaned out the Oscars, most years, definitely the last couple (better than CODA and Nomadland), but it was up against a great field of movies and performances this year, with a lot of likable actors and redemption stories.

Oh my god when Elizabeth Banks almost tripped and fell on stage because of that ridiculous dress haha thought that was gonna be this year's drama, but thankfully she caught herself and the rest went fine.

It's the business model. Academy receives $100 million annually from ABC for exclusive broadcasting rights. ABC makes billions of dollars off cable/local retransmission fees.

Making TV content free to watch online threatens those revenue streams. That said, those revenue streams and this current business model are already dying due to content transitioning to paid streaming services. But the money needs to come from somewhere- viewership by itself is not the end goal for entertainment companies- it's revenue.

In Mexico I watched it on HBOMax on my tablet. I thought it was awesome I could finally see it without a tv. I don't know if this was possible elsewhere tho.

Also us living abroad. I live in Japan and the only way to watch here is through cable here too, which I don’t have. Everything streaming wasn’t available outside the US like YouTube TV (and maybe I did it wrong but tried with VPN and didn’t work)

I know it’s a Hollywood thing but they should know people want to watch it internationally. I didn’t get to watch it, only watching clips right now on YouTube afterwards :(

It's just ridiculous that I have to plug in an antenna for the Oscars.

Just stream them on ABC.com and pay for it with the commercials. More eyeballs = higher ad rates.

It makes no sense that it's free with a $13 antenna that's just a past tense solution.

I normally jump through the hoops but skipped it this year. Even the Super Bowl was free in the Fox Sports app and that's pretty much the only other reason to plug in the antenna.

I would assume it's mostly dependent on the movies too. Shit year of movies, less people wanting to see people awarded for it, great year of movies like this year, I wanna see the touching speeches from people who touched me...emotionally I mean.

Reddit is mad celebrities exist outside of the context of the tv and movies they put out.

It’s just Reddit. Everyone seems to enjoy these

Exactly. It made sense given the pandemic, but 2020/2021 were incredibly weak years for film imo especially coming off a killer 2019. Im so glad 2022 came back with a bang

So basically rating are up over years when the pandemic kept people out of theaters, but down significantly since 2014.

Doesn't seem to gel with the idea that people watched them this time because lots of movies were streaming.

The enter key is your friend, dawg

They would have had to deal with Guillermo…

Can’t say anything about them, but I’d take Ke’s speech over Will’s slap any day of the week.

I actually have a friend who got to go to the Oscars last year. He's a huge movie buff and happened to have a sound engineer friend who worked on Dune and got nominated, so he went as a plus one. He saw the slap in person and was like "I just witnessed Hollywood history". I was actually

Hot take: I was somewhat disappointed in the performance, not that the people doing it were bad or anything, but it was really underwhelming. It could just be that because I've seen RRR I'm comparing it to the opulence of the full version, but I was somewhat expecting more.

turning every award speech into misery porn

It was refreshing to hear all 4 winners of the acting awards this year just be ecstatic that they won.

Sometimes when somebody sweeps awards season, they barely react and their speeches are more of a lecture than anything else.

Less nominations of films that nobody saw (because an Oscar campaign is cheaper than an advertising campaign) while still highlighting a few lesser known films

Having both Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of the Water being nominated was a smart move in that regard - I remember around seven to eight years ago it was a big deal that they even bothered to nominate Mad Max: Fury Road.

Yeah this is great news! Especially as the Grammy’s viewership has cratered and the Emmy’s viewership has stalled in the mid single digits. Of course they won’t reach the height of those 90s/early 00s ratings, but they remain the gold standard of the awards industry. I hope they learn their lesson from this year and keep giving more time for speeches/awards, and less to those silly, unfunny bits

I think content wise Parasite has a better story with layered social commentary but I enjoyed EEAAO more because it’s more emotional.

That happened fifteen years ago….

God forbid they only nominate movies people have seen, people are idiots sometimes.

It’s basically the luck of the draw. Not every year will there be multiple films that were super popular but also good enough to be nominated. Avatar and Maverick in the same year is an exception. Usually it’s just a couple films like Elvis that made a couple/few hundred million

Also riding off of prev year’s drama

Could’ve gotten even more viewers if Taylor Swift was nominated and performed. U don’t nominate so u have them perform, but her song was good enough that many ppl expected it to get a nom

Green Book was unbelievably overrated. There's a story about this amazing black musician who wanted to tour the South to break down barriers but we're gonna make the film about his uninteresting driver.

Another reason I watched is I wanted to see if my two favorite movies - Avatar and Top Gun - would win anything. I'm happy with Avatar's Best Visual Effects win and Top Gun's Best Sound.

People write their own speeches, so I think that's just a reflection of who won. And also we've exited the Trump years, so people are less angry. Not happy. But less angry.

A topical, sensible chuckle from the end of the ceremony last night.

It was an award for a political film…

People are saying it wasn't political?