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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Topic: Justice Department Warns Academy Over Potential Oscar Rule Changes Threatening Netfli
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Frank Cox
Film God
Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
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posted 04-02-2019 11:37 PM
Justice Department Warns Academy Over Potential Oscar Rule Changes Threatening Netflix (EXCLUSIVE)
quote:
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has warned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that its potential rule changes limiting the eligibility of Netflix and other streaming services for the Oscars could raise antitrust concerns and violate competition law.
According to a letter obtained by Variety, the chief of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, wrote to AMPAS CEO Dawn Hudson on March 21 to express concerns that new rules would be written “in a way that tends to suppress competition.”
“In the event that the Academy — an association that includes multiple competitors in its membership — establishes certain eligibility requirements for the Oscars that eliminate competition without procompetitive justification, such conduct may raise antitrust concerns,” Delrahim wrote.
The letter came in response to reports that Steven Spielberg, an Academy board member, was planning to push for rules changes to Oscars eligibility, restricting movies that debut on Netflix and other streaming services around the same time that they show in theaters. Netflix made a big splash at the Oscars this year, as the movie “Roma” won best director, best foreign language film and best cinematography.
An Academy spokesperson said, “We’ve received a letter from the Dept. of Justice and have responded accordingly. The Academy’s Board of Governors will meet on April 23 for its annual awards rules meeting, where all branches submit possible updates for consideration.”
Delrahim cited Section 1 of the Sherman Act that “prohibits anticompetitive agreements among competitors.”
“Accordingly, agreements among competitors to exclude new competitors can violate the antitrust laws when their purpose or effect is to impede competition by goods or services that consumers purchase and enjoy but which threaten the profits of incumbent firms,” Delrahim wrote.
He added, “if the Academy adopts a new rule to exclude certain types of films, such as films distributed via online streaming services, from eligibility for the Oscars, and that exclusion tends to diminish the excluded films’ sales, that rule could therefore violate Section 1.”
Spielberg’s concerns over the eligibility of movies on streaming platforms have triggered intense debate in the industry. Netflix responded on Twitter early last month with the statement, “We love cinema. Here are some things we also love. Access for people who can’t always afford, or live in towns without, theaters. Letting everyone, everywhere enjoy releases at the same time. Giving filmmakers more ways to share art. These things are not mutually exclusive.”
Spielberg told ITV News last year that Netflix and other streaming platforms have boosted the quality of television, but “once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie. … If it’s a good show—deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar.”
The letter reflects concerns that the Justice Department has been concerned about the ability of traditional media outlets to limit competition from new streaming video entrants, even those that have grown significantly in recent years like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Those concerns were touched upon in the AT&T-Time Warner transaction and later trial, and also were part of a consent decree reached to clear the Comcast-NBC Universal transaction in 2011. The latter included provisions that governed how the company treated online video distributors, but those conditions expired last year.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 04-03-2019 09:39 AM
At the risk of sailing too close to the political wind, I would hazard a guess that the current administration has been itching for a chance to take a shot at the Hollywood boogeyman, and that this is what they've come up with. To avoid sailing right into it, I won't speculate as to why. I'd like to add the Lori Laughlin "pay to play" college admission scandal to that barrage, but to expand the metaphor, she shot herself, with no help needed from the government.
In any case, I'd like to believe that no court would take any argument seriously to the effect that toughening up the theatrical release rules (i.e. requiring a serious theatrical release as distinct from a symbolic four-walling, which appears to be what Spielberg and his supporters are pushing for) is anti-competitive.
Throughout its history, the Oscars has been an awards program for movies that played in theaters, to large, gathered audiences. Moving image programs that were made primarily for other forms of release or publication have always been specifically excluded from Oscars eligibility. We're not talking about anti competitive practices within a specific industry or market sector, but rather about a different industry or market sector. No-one is threatening the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with an antitrust suit for refusing to honor opera singers!
That having been said, I wouldn't like to see the "four walling" tradition blown away by rules changes, because it has enabled some movies that would otherwise have disappeared without trace to generate the publicity needed to boost their audience. In particular, if I hadn't seen four-wall stories in the press about Red State and Zyzzx Road, I almost certainly wouldn't have sought out and seen these movies: I'm glad I did, because I liked both of them.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-03-2019 07:10 PM
I'm all for preserving the theatrical release window regardless of the situation over a given movie's Oscar eligibility.
I wish it was possible to restore a longer release window, but it seems like a genie out of the bottle scenario. As the release window gets shorter more of that genie creeps out of that bottle bit by bit. If the release window gets short enough, letting enough of the genie squeeze free, the window will be meaningless. The genie will pop the rest of the way out of the bottle. Not neat either. It'll be like a newborn colt flopping the rest of the way out of a mare's birth canal. Big nasty, liquid mess. What emerges won't be as cute as a baby horse. The thing born will be what finally brings about the death of commercial movie theaters.
If it's just a matter of which movies are eligible for Oscars, I'm not quite so hard-lined about them playing in theaters anymore.
A lot of lines have been blurred between movies and TV.
The movie and TV productions are using the same production and post production gear (glorified video cameras and digital video post production tools). Booth gear for commercial cinemas is far more sophisticated and expensive than almost any home theater setup. But both commercial theaters and modern TV sets at home are fundamentally showing a picture very similar in image quality.
Aside from the technical situation the bigger problem is on the distribution and exhibition side. Merger-mania has allowed giant media companies to gobble up movie studios, TV networks, music labels, movie theater chains and production companies making all kinds of entertainment. Companies like AT&T and Sony are spread out in other areas. One rumor is Apple may buy Disney for all cash when Bob Iger retires. These huge companies are putting it all under one roof and making a joke out of any previous anti-trust legislation. The mergers are reducing consumer choice and raising prices. The response from global media companies (like Disney) to an upstart like Netflix is more mergers and walling off content in their own competing streaming companies. Let's not forget the Save the Cat! screenwriting template bible being applied to many of these features.
Merger mania has affected movie theater chains. AMC and Regal have gobbled up competitors and thousands of screens. Again, this is something that is limiting choice of content (and even raising prices). It has already long been a difficult problem for smaller, independent movie productions to get booked in commercial theaters. Theater chain mergers only promise to make the situation worse. There are chains like Alamo Drafthouse who book at least some indie content. But while Alamo Drafthouse grows more popular that chain is also becoming more of a gatekeeper for that kind of content.
In the end, most people around the country are only going to see these lower budget, indie or art-house movie releases on a TV set at home. Video rental stores are disappearing fast, so that (for better or worse) leaves streaming as the main viewing option for many of these movies.
So, yeah, if some truly great indie release only manages to appear on Netflix, Amazon Prime or whatever because it couldn't get a theater booking, much less a legit theatrical release, then yeah it should probably be Oscar eligible.
The AMPAS has screwed itself in the past over this kind of stuff. Anyone remember when Linda Fiorentino starred in The Last Seduction back in the 1990's? The movie first appeared in the US on a premium cable TV network (HBO?) after playing a couple film festivals. Then it got an actual theatrical release in the fall of 1994. The movie was widely acclaimed by film critics, some of whom said Linda Fiorentino's performance was the best by an actress that year. Since the movie first appeared on TV Fiorentino's great performance was deemed ineligible. But she did land a gig with Men in Black. So I guess that makes it all better!
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 04-04-2019 03:57 PM
Warning: The following post might be overly political, but I guess that's almost unavoidable, since the topic itself is already pretty loaded.
I'd say that the theatrical release window is not something the government can and should take control over. It's also hard to play the monopoly card here, since the release window affects every exhibitor roughly the same way.
Also, I think it's rather hard to play the monopoly card against the AMPAS, but maybe it shows what kind of priorities the current U.S. Government really has: It's more about show than about merits, unfortunately.
But, the real abuse of monopolistic powers, is in how the ever-more consolidated studios deal with the exhibition industry. As in how they selectively distribute their content and dictate rules that allows for almost zero flexibility for the smaller exhibitors. They've been hiding behind a supposedly too expensive distribution system for ages as a reasoning for those practices, which they eventually got rid off themselves, by switching to an all-digital model...
Even though this current U.S. Government is all about show, it shows they're also shortsighted and outright incompetent in this particular regard (I'll withhold comment on others, but governmental incompetence is by no means an U.S. exclusivity ![[Wink]](wink.gif) ). Does Netflix really need any more government support? Is Netflix part of the supposed middle-class that needs bolstering?
If they claim to fight for the little guy, then they have the perfect fight right here, because it's predominantly the little exhibitors who has a hard time dealing with the monopolistic practices of those studios...
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Justin Hamaker
Film God
Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004
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posted 04-04-2019 07:12 PM
Frank, there is some truth to that. However, with Netflix that would be impossible to quantify for two specific reasons.
First, they don't really do a theatrical release, and don't release any box office figures for the small release they do.
Second, because Netflix's primary revenue stream is subscriptions, it would be near to impossible to quantify whether subscriptions were directly linked to Oscar nominated films. Since they don't release any information about the number of times their movies are streamed, it is impossible to quantify how much impact a movie like Roma has on their service.
About the only way you could really quantify this would be too look at the number of trial accounts which were created around the time of the Oscars, and then how many of those primarily watched their Oscar nominated movies. But they would also have to show that those trials converted to actual paid subscriptions in order to show they were making money from the Oscar nominations.
When it comes to theatrical releases, there is also the question of whether any box office bump offsets what was paid for the "For your Consideration" campaigns. In general I think the Oscar nominations/wins is more of an intangible prestige factor than major money maker. Of course there are exceptions like Slumdog Millionaire which took off largely because of the award season chatter.
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