Oscars fail to make Top 100 Shows

[Martin McCaffery]

Variety

Top 100 Telecasts of 2021: ‘NCIS,’ ‘Yellowstone,’ NFL Dominate, as Oscars Fail to Make the Cut

Michael Schneider
Dec 29, 2021 10:30am PT
Without fail, the Academy Awards always winds up as one of the top 10 most-watched telecasts of the year in primetime. Until 2021. In a stunner, the Oscarsdidn’t even make this year’s list of the entire top 100.

That’s a tremendous fall from grace for the ceremony, which in 2020 was TV’s No. 2 entertainment telecast, with 24.3 million viewers — behind only the post-Super Bowl airing of “The Masked Singer.” This year’s plunge to 10.7 million viewers puts it way down on the full list. Besides sports, that means more people watched 21 different episodes of “NCIS,” nine episodes of “FBI,” seven episodes of “60 Minutes,” five episodes of “Yellowstone,“ four episodes of “The Equalizer” and one episode each of “Law & Order: SVU” and “Law & Order: Organized Crime“ than watched the Oscars.

Oh, and two CBS specials did better than the Oscars, too: “Oprah With Meghan and Harry” and “Adele One Night Only.”

This is, of course, an awards show problem, not just an Oscars problem. The Grammy Awards and the Golden Globes, which made the top 100 list in 2020, are nowhere to be found in 2021.

[Bobby Henderson]

This can't be too surprising with what the global pandemic has done to the entertainment industry lately. The movie industry and music industry have been stuck in the doldrums.

[Frank Angel]

Yes, perhaps this says something about the way the public perceives award shows, much like it perceives variety shows. But just maybe this also says something about the way the public perceives movies and brick-and-mortar cinemas..simply no longer exciting, but more like "nothing to see here...move along." What this may be hinting at is we are finally reaping what the industry has been sowing for many years now...devalung The Movies and the movie experience itself, to the point where movie have become much less relevant than they used to be.

Remember when Movies were events in the past -- events that the public anticipated, and when they arrived, they had legs that would, at least on the tent-pole films, could keep them vibrant for months. Remember then films could be re-released? When I was a kid, The Century Theatres on the East Coast had 1-sheets that they displayed across the entire chain that read: "Movies, Movies, Movies -- Everyone Should Have One To Look Forward To!" Then the industry decided what a good idea it would be to open a film all over the country at the same time rather than the traditional distribution model of opening in Key Cities first, and only in First Run theatres, then move to second run in smaller cities and towns and then in "underbelly" theatres; movies were around for months with that pattern. But now opening movies everywhere at once means those same movies were then pretty much gone gone just as quickly. Movies have become the fast food of the entertainment industry, one-time Dixi-cup items of our throat-away culture.

Welp, no point sitting an moaning about it, because the industry has done it to itself. Make only retreads, make only superhero movies for 14 yr old males, pull back presentation values and showmanship to the cheapest possible, bare-bones level, make the most exciting thing in a "cinema," not the room where the movies are experienced, but the two block long concession stand of gleaming chrome and glass and neon lights and animated menus while the movie-goers carry their overpriced junk food-stuffs and drinks into dark, dank, rows of holes-in-the-wall rooms, each indistinguishable from the other...cookie-cutter, assembly-line "theatres," only to be bombarded for 45 minutes with the same ads as they see on tv -- more noise...more gack. They sit in unexciting, boring cinemas offering up nothing what will excite the mind or the imagination. This decline in interest in the Oscars can only stem from the way the public perceives movies...nothing special. It is indicative of what has been going on imperceptible now for many years (and which our F-T community here has lamented at length about for decades); Folks, the coffin has been the white elephant in the room for awhile now and the industry itself has been buying the mails and hitting the hammer. Maybe this is the last nail in that coffin.

[Bobby Henderson]

The main reason why the awards shows for movies and music are tanking lately is because the past couple of years have been very light on new content, feature movies in particular. That means the awards from these shows sort of don't count as being real. Without a full slate of legit content in competition the whole thing needs an asterisk by it.

As much as Americans have been cooped up, isolated and depressed the overall mood for awards shows isn't for shit. Cinemas have to be fully operational, music venues booked up and the social scene back to normal for things like movies and music to generate the level of cultural interest they've commanded in the past. So much of it still feels like it's on pause. Series TV is one of the few mass entertainment mediums that feels somewhat normal.

Regarding 40+ years ago when movies had legs: the movie industry was far different then. And it was considerably smaller. Feature films were able to be re-released in theaters again and again up into the early 1980's because even VHS tape rentals were just starting to hit their boom period. Even during that boom time, watching movies on VHS tape, displayed on a square TV screen still sucked, particularly compared to the cinema experience, even if the cinema was showing the movie in mono.

Decades ago giant multi-national corporations and Wall Street didn't have their hooks clawed nearly as deep into movie studios as they do now. When movie studios were re-releasing movies in cinemas decades ago they weren't doing it just to be nice to fans of those movies. It was about squeezing as much revenue from those properties as possible using the few release platforms they had: either cinemas or broadcast TV. Those days are long gone. Parent companies and investors want a new movie earning all its possible revenue ASAP. They don't care if the movie's total life cycle is spent within 12 months and the movie completely forgotten in 2-3 years. Feature movies are now just one department in a bigger scheme.

[Mike Blakesley]

Sad as it is, just about everything in this thread is true.

The one slight glimmer of hope is the pile of growing evidence that a theatrical release with a window before a movie goes into the home-video sewer really does make a movie seem more like an event, and it really does enhance the downstream revenue for said movie. When a movie hits the steaming video pile at the same time as all the other things on the pile, it has no special-ness. So now, given that a few movies with windows have kicked ass, and a lot of movies without windows have sank like rocks. never to be heard of or talked about again... the lightbulbs over the bean counters' heads are starting to slowly, dimly, come on... and now we're starting to see one-sheets that say "ONLY IN MOVIE THEATERS" on them. This could be a good thing...imagine, the studios promoting the theatrical experience.

[Frank Angel]

The opening of KNUTE ROCKNE - ALL AMERICAN at the State Theatre in small-town South Bend IN. True, it was of special interest in that town because of Notre Dame where he coached was there, but still, for a fairly mediocre film (some other than college footballs fans might have even call it a "B" picture), when was the last time you saw this kind of excitement about a movie-- ANY movie these days?

Knut Rockne All Americal Premiere.jpg

[Martin McCaffery]

And that was in the days a movie would only play for 2 or 3 days!
Sort of the opposite, but To Kill A Mockingbird didn't play in Monroeville, AL (the real life town Maycomb was based on and the home of Harper Lee) until after it won the Academy Award. Not that Monroeville didn't want the film, that is just the way distribution worked in those days. It would be months before movies would make it to small towns.

[Frank Angel]

Yes, but a film might play only for a few days, more if it were bringing in big box office (theatres didn't pull films that were making lots of money). MY FAIR LADY played for a YEAR at the Criterion in NYC. Thing is, most films did play out in a week, but with a tiered distribution release pattern, they stayed around for months. I remember many times missing the a title that played the first run theatre in town, but knew that was not a problem because there were three other theatres in town that would play it over the course of a month. Then of course there was always the possibility of it being re-released if it were a really good title, especially after a film won an Academy Award it could be found again at at lease one or two theatres.

[Bobby Henderson]

The one slight glimmer of hope is the pile of growing evidence that a theatrical release with a window before a movie goes into the home-video sewer really does make a movie seem more like an event, and it really does enhance the downstream revenue for said movie.

To me a movie isn't a legit movie unless it plays in real movie theaters. Unless it has an actual theatrical release. BTW, booking a movie on one screen in LA or NYC doesn't really count either. A movie that doesn't play in theaters is just a TV show.

I'm thinking quite a few people who aren't even film nerds agree with me on this. So, yeah, it does look like bean counters on Wall Street might possibly be realizing they're costing themselves money by releasing movies in theaters and at home simultaneously.

I have an HBO MAX subscription. So I watched the new Matrix sequel at home on my 65" HDTV screen. And I'm kind of glad I did because I wasn't very impressed with the movie. But if The Matrix: Resurrections had an exclusive theatrical release and a decent length window I might have shelled out $15 per ticket to see it on the local "IMAX" screen, plus another $10 or so for concessions items. WB ended up losing money on me; I mainly have HBO MAX for their TV series content.

The opening of KNUTE ROCKNE - ALL AMERICAN at the State Theatre in small-town South Bend IN. True, it was of special interest in that town because of Notre Dame where he coached was there, but still, for a fairly mediocre film (some other than college footballs fans might have even call it a "B" picture), when was the last time you saw this kind of excitement about a movie-- ANY movie these days?

Knute Rockne All American was released in 1940. Broadcast television was in its infancy during that time. TV sets weren't all that affordable to most people. For many Americans the radio and the cinema were their only options for mass entertainment. People had to go to the theater to watch the news. Commercial cinemas enjoyed so many advantages back then, due in part to lack of competition.

I'm a sign maker. I'm very familiar with the history of cinema marquees and other signs relating to movie theaters and the movie industry. 60-70 years ago a big city cinema might have elaborate semi-permanent signs installed to advertise the movie playing there. The movie title signs might have letters encrusted with chase lights, neon and accompanied with hand-painted murals. The movie would play in that theater for months or even more than a year. Today Times Square is covered in LED jumbotrons that absolutely blow away any of the similar concepts seen in Bladerunner. We just don't have the flying cop cars and murderous artificial humans. But those displays aren't for movie theaters. They're advertising other stuff. As great as a modern LED display can be, it's basically just a bunch of LED tiles joined together into one massive-sized display in some version of a rectangle. Movie theaters no longer have the big elaborate, hand crafted signs for indoor cinemas and drive-ins that were far more common in the past. In many cities local sign codes have placed serious (or severe) limits on what theaters can do even if they wanted to install elaborate signs. Marquees like the one at the El Capitan theater in LA are an extreme rarity now.

Even some 1980's era marketing stunts may never be seen again. Remember the big countdown clock sign that was in Times Square to promote Back to the Future: Part II back in 1990? Damn. That sequel is 31 years old now.

I would be happy if the movie business could just go back to a pseudo 1990's release model. I don't care if a movie is released in cinemas across the globe all at once. But I think it's important to have an exclusive theatrical window that is measured in at least several months rather than a few weeks. I would be even more happy if the movie industry took more chances on more new ideas rather than all the damned derivative shit they keep trying to re-sell.