NEW YORK (AP) – George Bradley loved watching the Academy Awards. The 28-year-old Briton who now lives in San Diego will stay home late just to hook up.
Although he’s in the right time zone right now, he’s just not interested, and that’s mainly due to the pandemic.
“The increasing dominance of the streaming services has brought the shine of the Oscars to me,” he said. “You just do not get the same warm, fuzzy feeling when you recognize a film of the silver screen.”
Whether you look out of love, because you love to hate or give up like Bradley, awards have suffered since the coronavirus closed theaters and closed live performances. But the awards night for awards nights began before Covid-19 took over.
For most of this century, the Oscars attracted 35 to 45 million viewers, often just behind the Super Bowl. Last year, just before the pandemic was declared, the smallest audience ever, 23.6 million viewers, saw the hostless broadcast on ABC, 20 percent lower than the previous year.
The Golden Globes of the pandemic era, a little over a year later, dropped to 6.9 million viewers, 64% lower than last year and hardly the best of 2008, the year the writers’ strike forced NBC to broadcast a news conference announcing winners. According to the Nielsen company, the show had 18.4 million viewers, before the exclusion, last year.
In March, Grammy producers avoided the Zoom inconvenience of other awards shows and staged performances of some of the biggest stars in the industry – without any benefit. CBS television reached 9.2 million viewers, both television and streaming, the lowest number on record and a 51% drop from 2020, Nielsen said.
John Bennardo (52) in Boca Raton, Florida, is a film lover, graduate film and screenwriter, and operates a video industry for mostly clients. This year is a no-go for the Oscars.
“I love the movies and strive to one day receive my own award on that very Oscars stage,” he said. ‘I watch every year and take it in, take part in contests where I try to pick winners and see all the movies. But something has changed for this year. ”
To begin with, he has not nominated a single film in any category.
‘Maybe I’d rather watch’ Zach Snyder’s Justice League. ‘ It could be shorter, ”Bennardo joked about the Oscars performance.
As with other awards, the broadcast of the Oscars was pushed back due to pandemic restrictions and safety issues. The show has been postponed three times in history, but never before. The organizers planned it on 25 April in June last year, as opposed to the normal closing in February or early March.
Count it among other driving forces behind the fatigue of the Oscars. Another, according to former fans of the program, has to watch nominated movies on small screens and keep track of when and where it is available for streaming and on-demand services. For some, it was one big ambiguity.
Priscilla Visintine (62) in St. Louis, Missouri, used to live to watch the Academy Awards. She attended watch parties every year, usually dressed for the occasion.
“Definitely the closure of the theaters has caused me a lack of interest this year,” she said. “I had no feeling for Oscar buzz.”
Not all diehards have given up their favorite awards show.
In Knoxville, Tennessee, 50-year-old Jennifer Rice and her 22-year-old son, Jordan, have been racing for years to watch as many nominated movies as possible. In recent years, it has been their ‘February madness’, she said, and they have kept maps to document their predictions. She even attended the Oscars in 2019 through her then-job for a beauty business.
‘My other two children, aged 25 and 19, are not interested in the Oscars. “It’s just something special for Jordan and me, ‘Rice said. “The Oscars are actually pushing us to watch movies that we may never have chosen. I’m not that excited this year, but we’re still trying to keep an eye on everything before the awards show. ”
As the real problems for many viewers have increased, from food insecurity and work interruption to the isolation of lockdown and parenting struggles, awards shows offer less escape and dazzling blinding than in the past, and often rely on pre-recorded performances and Zoom boxes for nominees. In addition, data show little interest among younger generations in hiring television in general.
Lifelong film lover and self-made filmmaker, 22-year-old Pierre Subeh from Orlando, Florida, will stop watching the Oscars in 2019.
‘We can barely sit for a 15-second TikTok. How are we expected to put on a clever four-hour awards ceremony filled with advertisements and outdated insulting jokes? We live in the age of content curation. We need algorithms to find out what we want to look at and to show us the best of the best, ‘he said.
As a Muslim, Middle Eastern immigrant, Subeh also sees little recording of his culture in the lead film, let alone still on the Oscars stage.
“We are only mentioned when Aladdin is raised. I do not feel motivated to gather my family on a Sunday for a four-hour awards ceremony that never mentions our culture and religion. However, as Muslims we make up about 25% of the world population, ”he said.
Jon Niccum, 55, of Lawrence, Kansas, writes screenwriting at the University of Kansas. He is a filmmaker, went to a film school and worked as a film critic. He and his wife host an annual Oscar party, with 30 guests at the high season, including a pool of bets for winners for money and prizes. Due to the pandemic, it’s only family-only, but the bet is up.
And do you watch all the best movies at home? He mostly said, “It was less satisfying.” Less satisfying enough to broadcast the Oscars television?
‘I have not missed an Oscar since 45 years ago. I will watch it every minute, ”said Niccum.
In Medford, New Jersey, 65-year-old Deb Madison will also be watching, as she and her mother took her to the movie for the first time since she was a child.
In 2018, while on an RV trip with her husband, she drove him into the city with her in Carlsbad, New Mexico, to see a place to look. The ride back was in pitch darkness. Another year, when she was working on a big party in Philadelphia on Oscar night, the coordinators laid cable and hid a small TV under the reception desk so she could tune in.
Madison said it was trying to dampen her excitement by keeping track of the nominations from home.
‘I’m a sucker for the red carpet and the gowns and,’ Oh god, I can not believe she wore it. “Another thing is that I do not have to see these actors in their home environments,” she says with a laugh. “This year, if I miss it, it would not be tragic. No one will have to lay cable this year. “But I still like the movies.”