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MUMBAI: The 78th annual Academy Awards, which aired live on Star
Movies yesterday, threw up a huge surprise when Crash took
home the Oscar for Best Picture taking out overwhelming favourite
Brokeback Mountain.
What was not such a big surprise though for many in the US was
the fact that ratings for broadcaster ABC were down by eight per
cent with only 38.8 million people watching the show. Except for
2003 when 33 million viewers tuned in to see Chicago taking
the best-picture award -- the Oscars hadn't dipped below 40 million
viewers since 1987. Last year 42.1 million viewers tuned in and
in 2004 43.5 million viewers tuned in.
The fall in ratings is being ascribed to the kind of films that
were vying for top honours. Serious and powerful films were nominated
for best picture while the blockbusters like King Kong had
to be satisfied competing for the technical awards. On a more positive
note The Jon Stewart-hosted Oscars were up five per cent over last
year among men 18-34 (9.9 rating vs. 9.4 rating).
The Academy made a consistent effort to have the show run as smooth
and as quickly as possible. Quiet music began playing as soon as
winners got on the stage thus subtly reminding them to make their
speech within 30 seconds. Crash beating Brokeback Mountain
was surprising considering that the latter won almost every other
top award including the Golden Globe and the Bafta.
However the gay western put off Academy members who probably found
the idea of two cowboys having overt sex repulslve. If the alternative
was an in your face film that took a laudably frank and unblinking
look at racism in Los Angeles, then so be it.
Nielsen also did research on advertising on the Oscars. The Oscar
telecasts have maintained the same major advertiser presence for
the past several years. Pepsi, Cadillac, JC Penney and American
Express Travel continue to be the top advertisers during the Academy
Awards. Last year's telecast had a total of 27½ commercial
minutes, with Pepsi airing 3 minutes of commercials, while Cadillac
and JC Penney aired 2 ½ minutes each. American Express and
L’Oreal followed, each with a total of 2 commercial minutes. L’Oreal
became a major advertiser in 2005, increasing their brand exposure
significantly from one 30-second commercial in 2004 to four 30-second
commercials in 2005.
The cost for a 30-second commercial has increased by roughly four
per cent over the five-year period since 2001. Although the cost
per commercial varies, total advertising expenditures during the
programme shows a steady increase. There is also a fluctuation in
the length of the program each year, seeing the biggest decrease
in length in 2005 with just over three hours compared to over four
hours in 2002.
Although the programme length decreased compared to prior years,
last year's event had the greatest number of commercial minutes
in the last five years.
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