Get Ready for the Oscar Stunts

The ratings for last Sunday's Golden Globes were bad -- bad, as in, the worst ratings since NBC started airing them in 1996: 14.6 million, versus the 20 million in 2007. (They didn't air last year because of the WGA strike.)

Combine that with the worst-ever ratings of last year's Oscar ceremony (32 million) and what do you get? The producers of the Oscars desperate to "shake things up" enough so that people will tune back in.

The first example of this was the announcement that Hugh Jackman would be hosting. Veering away from stand-up comedians and toward a theater-trained, classically handsome star is a good idea...except that Australia flopped, which kind of underlines the point that the real reason people aren't tuning in is because there's a smaller audience for awards-bait movies these days.

Not because the ceremony is too long, like they always think. Not because of the host, or the amount of montages. Because not enough people are truly interested in the movies being nominated.

The times when Oscar ratings are at their highest are not when there's a nail-biting race, like The Aviator vs. Million Dollar Baby. It's when one big, popular movie sweeps -- Titanic in 1997, the third Lord of the Rings in 1998. Last year, they had Juno, but no one had seen No Country for Old Men or Michael Clayton or There Will Be Blood. Beyond the art house crowds, there just wasn't any interest there.

The single biggest thing the Academy could do to get people watching this year? Nominate The Dark Knight for Best Picture. If Doubt squeezes in ahead of it, you can kiss 10 million extra viewers goodbye. Or more.

Anyway, the most recent example of the Oscar ceremony's producers trying to shake things up: they're not announcing who the presenters will be. Usually all the presenters are listed beforehand in an effort to impress viewers with the starpower -- but when you can go online and find out what your favorite celebrity had for lunch today, people aren't as impressed anymore. So the big idea is to keep the list a secret.

Guess what? It doesn't matter. Does the average person even know that before this year, they announced the presenters before the ceremony aired? I'm guessing no.

Recent Entries:
· The Crowded Animated Feature Problem
· 'An Education' Heats Up
· Roman Polanski's Arrest Makes Everyone Go Insane

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