NEW YORK (AP) – George Bradley loved watching the Academy Awards. The 28-year-old Briton who now lives in San Diego would stay up late at home to tune in.
Although he is now in the right time zone, he is not interested and this is mainly due to the pandemic.
“The growing dominance of broadcasting services has brought me the glory of the Oscars,” he said. “You just don’t have the same warm fuzzy feeling when you recognize a movie from the silver screen.”
Whether you’re watching for love, whether you like to hate, or you’ve given up like Bradley, the awards have suffered since the coronavirus closed theaters and closed live performances. But the slide show of awards nights began long before Covid-19 took over.
For much of this century, the Oscars attracted between 35 and 45 million viewers, often just behind the Super Bowl. Last year, just before the pandemic broke out, ABC’s hostless television was watched by its smallest audience in history, 23.6 million viewers, 20% less than the previous year. .
The Golden Globes of the pandemic era just over a year later fell to 6.9 million viewers, 64% less than last year and barely surpassing 2008, the year in which the strike of a writer forced NBC to broadcast a press conference announcing the winners. Last year, after blocking, the show had 18.4 million viewers, according to the Nielsen company.
In March, Grammy producers avoided the inconvenience of zooming in from other awards shows and performed some of the biggest stars in the industry, to no avail. CBS broadcasting reached 9.2 million viewers, both television and broadcast, the lowest number recorded and a 51% drop from 2020, Nielsen said.
John Bennardo, 52, of Boca Raton, Florida, is a film buff, film school graduate and screenwriter, and runs a videography business for most corporate clients. This year is a must for the Oscars.
“I love movies and I aspire to be on this stage of the Oscars someday receiving my own award,” he said. “I watch it every year and I take part in it, I take part in competitions where I try to choose the winners and I try to see all the films. But something has changed for this year.
For starters, he hasn’t seen any films nominated in any category.
“Maybe I’ll look at ‘Zach Snyder’s Justice League.’ It might be shorter,” Bennardo joked about the Oscars program.
Like other awards, the television broadcast of the Oscars was delayed due to pandemic restrictions and security concerns. The show had been postponed three times before in history, but never so early. Organizers last June scheduled it for April 25, unlike its usual strip in February or early March.
Note that, among other forces driving the fatigue of the Oscars. Another, according to former fans of the show, is having to watch nominated movies on small screens and be up to date on when and where they are available in streaming and a la carte services. Some have been a big blur.
Priscilla Visintine, 62, of St. Louis, Missouri, used to live to see the Academy Awards. She attended surveillance parties every year, usually dressed to the occasion.
“Without a doubt, the shutter of the theaters created my lack of interest this year,” he said. “I didn’t have any sense of the Oscar.”
Not all intense ones have given up their favorite prize.
In Knoxville, Tennessee, Jennifer Rice, 50, and her son, Jordan, 22, have run for years to see the maximum number of films nominated. In years past, it was their “February madness,” he said, and they kept graphs to document their predictions. She even made it to the Oscars in 2019 through her work for a beauty company at the time.
“My other two children, aged 25 and 19, have no interest in scscar. It’s just something special for Jordan and me, ”Rice said. “The Oscars push us to see films that we may never have chosen. I’m not so excited this year, but we’re still trying to see it all before the awards ceremony. “
Because real-life hardships have intensified for many viewers, from food insecurity and work interruption to the isolation of blockages and parental struggles, the awards offer less escapism and dazzle than in the past, often depending on previously recorded performances and Zoom boxes for nominees. In addition, the data show little interest among younger generations in television by appointment in general.
A lifelong lover of films and himself a filmmaker, 22-year-old Pierre Subeh of Orlando, Florida, stopped watching the Oscars in 2019.
“We can barely stay in a 15-second TikTok. How are we expected to secure ourselves in a dragged four-hour awards ceremony, full of obsolete ads and offensive jokes? We live the time of content healing. We need algorithms to find out what we want to see and to show ourselves the best of the best, ”he said.
As a Muslim immigrant from the Middle East, Subeh also sees little inclusion of his culture in mainstream cinema, let alone on the Oscars stage.
“We are only mentioned when Aladdin is raised. I don’t feel motivated to gather my family on a Sunday to attend a four-hour handover ceremony that never makes any mention of our culture and religion. Muslims, we represent approximately 25% of the world’s population, ”he said.
Jon Niccum, 55, of Lawrence, Kansas, is a professor of screenwriting at Kansas State University. He is a filmmaker, went to film school and has worked as a film critic. He and his wife host an annual Oscar party, with 30 guests at their peak, including a betting group on winners for money and prizes. This year will be just family, due to the pandemic, but the stakes continue.
And watching all the best movies at home? For the most part, he said, “It was less satisfying.” Less satisfactory to leave the Oscars TV broadcast?
“I haven’t lost an Oscar in 45 years. I’m going to look at it every minute, ”Niccum said.
In Medford, New Jersey, 65-year-old Deb Madison will also be watching, as she did so as a child and her mother took her to the movies for the first time.
In 2018, while on a road trip with her husband, she cycled into the city with her to Carlsbad, New Mexico, to find a place to look at him. The return trip was in the dark. One more year, when he was working at the reception for a big party in Philadelphia on Oscar night, the coordinators put the cable on and provided him with a small TV hidden under the welcome desk so he could tune in.
This year, trying to keep up with the nominees from home has stifled her excitement, Madison said.
“I’m a sucker on the red carpet and gowns and,‘ My God, I can’t believe I wore this. “Another thing is I don’t need to see these actors in their home environments.” she said with a laugh. “This year, if I missed it, it wouldn’t be tragic. No one should be wired this year. But I still love movies. ”