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Last week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the selection Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman to produce the 82nd annual version of my favorite non-sports TV event, The Oscars.
It's their first time at bat.
Given that the Academy Awards has fallen in ratings in fits and starts over its lofty 55 million viewer mark of 1998, something new must be done. Yes. Yes. I know the rating were up last year over the year before and you say it's because of Hugh Jackman.
I say it's because of nothing - it was only a six percent increase and the ratings have been so low I think the telecast reached what in statistics is called a "steady-state" where absent any major change, Oscar ratings go up a bit from the previous year, then down.
Adding ten new possible Best Picture winners makes this a real horse race and should make for a ratings increase but if - and only if - popular movies like Star Trek make the cut.
But if we get a larger range of movies no one saw, we're back to the same ratings problem as before. Unless Mechanic and Adam Shankman do something different, Oscar's in trouble on television.
That something different should be to use YouTube and ABC to promote a program where people tell what they remember most about Oscars of years past - favorite moments. The best videos would be shown during the telecast.
I offer the idea because Oscar's ratings decline seems to coincide with the emergence of online content and digital media. A person can miss the awards and still find out what happened on a website, complete with video clips. One could not do that in 1998. You had to tune in. YouTube was launched in 2005, and the first blog wasn't created until 2001. So I think all of this is related to Oscar's ratings decline.
My idea is a variation of the 2007 CNN / YouTube Democratic Debate where viewers were asked to submit their questions for the candidates. CNN producers picked their favorites and out of that process 52 videos were shown. This was my submission, aired for then-candidate, now Vice President Joe Biden:
In Oscar's case, five videos should be selected of one minute each.
So there are the ground rules: one person holding a YouTube account submits one video per account of up to one minute and tagged "Oscar memories".
But given that it's November, the producers better start soon. I vote for a mid-January launch and enlisting ABC to market the contest on television. The winners will be flown to Los Angeles to attend the Academy Awards, walk The Red Carpet, and be introduced to the audience as part of the show.
Tell me that's not going to be huge?! It will draw the young adult demographic that will in turn cause Oscar ratings to increase. Everyone will want to watch to see if they, or their friends or relative's, video will be picked.
Gimicky? Yes. New Media-driven? Yep. Risky? How? The idea taps into everyone's baser desire to see themselves on television, even in the case of the Academy Awards.
I think it will work wonders, and since the topic of "Oscar memories" is something that is never ending - provided the show goes on annually - it can be done every year. It will help restore that "must-see" excitement to an already great and classic show.
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