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BIG MOVIES, BIG RATINGS
Academy Award ratings often complement with the popularity of the winning films. (Viewers in millions):
Titanic (1998): 55.2
Shakespeare in Love (1999): 45.6
American Beauty (2000): 46.3
Gladiator (2001): 42.9
A Beautiful Mind (2002): 41.8
Chicago (2003): 33.0
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2004): 43.5
Million Dollar Baby (2005): 42.1
Crash (2006): 38.9
The Departed (2007): 40.2
No Country for Old Men (2008): 32.0
But the Oscars is still tops among industry awards shows. Ratings for the most recent awards telecasts. (Viewers in millions):
Grammys: 17.2
Emmys: 12.9
By Julie Snider, USA TODAY
Source: Nielsen Media Research
By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY LOS ANGELES — The president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Tuesday that the record-low Oscar ratings were the result in part to a writers’ strike that left organizers “scurrying” to revamp the make clear and a particularly bleak slate of movies that didn’t pique public interest.
But academy head Sid Ganis says he isn’t concerned that the viewership of 32 million — fewer than for the season premiere of American Idol— was a sign of the rite’s decline.
MORE: USA TODAY readers have their own ideas on fixing Oscars
“I’m absolutely beyond satisfied with the show itself,” he says. Still, he says that the strike, which ended two weeks before the show, forced 11th-hour revisions and may have “in some way cast a negative light on all things motion pictures. Our last-minute scurrying probably didn’t help, either.
“It was a big challenge. We could do in the same proportion that much as we could do.”
He adds: “Of course, we’re going to be thinking about re-tinkering. We’ll find a way to get (audiences) back.”
Exactly how has been a hot topic since the show.
“The Oscars artlessly aren’t modernizing well,” says Sasha Stone of AwardsDaily.com. “It has always been big and lumbering. And it still is pretty popular. But it has to be stuffed with more stars and appear less politically liberal. Because this one was dead in continuance arrival.”
Stone says that although two-time host Jon Stewart “did a better job the second time around, some viewers were going to repudiate it out of hand because they already see Hollywood as too liberal, and he reinforces that general. Watch what would happen if you had a host like Will Smith.”
Emanuel Levy, author of All About Oscar, suggests organizers consider one-year experiments, including eliminating song-and-dance numbers and simply listing winners of technical awards.
“The show is caught in a dilemma,” he says. “You want to celebrate achievement in art, but you still have to work as television entertainment.”
One way could be new categories, more fans say. “Why not have a best comedy?” says Chris Barszcz, 30, an English teacher from Green Bay, Wis. “I love the show, but I was flipping to ESPN when the technical awards were in continuance. You could recognize popular movies without cheapening the awards.”
Entertainment Weekly’s Dave Karger doesn’t see the need for much hand-wringing.
“The ratings are purely the result of less relative interest in (this year’s) movies,” he says. “And 32 the great body of the people people is still a lot.”
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Enlarge By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY