How do you know the economy's really in the toilet?

Variety is reporting that for the first time ever the motion picture academy will allow studios to run movie ads during the Oscar telecast. Why? Take a wild guess. With the economy in a shambles and everyone pulling back on advertising commitments everywhere, the Oscars can't be so choosy anymore. It doesn't help that the Academy Awards' TV ratings have been in a steady downhill slide in recent years, leaving them with a loyal, but very, very old audience that delivers advertisers only a small fraction of the kind of viewership they get from a Big Event like the Super Bowl.

The academy is retaining some of its old fuddy-duddy rules, limiting ads to one per studio and prohibiting movies that are up for awards from being advertised. Still, the academy made one shrewd move, requiring studios to deliver an ad that hasn't run anywhere else. This creates the possibility that the ads themselves could become an event. The academy is hurt by its awards show airing six or so weeks after the Super Bowl, which remains the launching pad for the big summer films and male-oriented action pictures.

But the Oscars, which will air Feb. 22, could become an advertising focal point for vaguely adult-oriented films that have some aspiration to quality. You wouldn't bother running an ad for "The A-Team" or "Fast & Furious," but you might be tempted to run ads for Nora Ephron's "Julie and Julia" or Peter Jackson's "The Lovely Bones," just two of the films that could benefit from an Oscar ad launch. Judging from the current crop of Oscar contenders coming our way, the 2009 telecast may reach a smaller audience than ever before. But at least this increases the odds that someone might be talking about the Oscars at the water cooler the next day, even if they're just intrigued by the cool ad they saw for the new "Star Trek" movie. Hope springs eternal!

Photo of Oscar statuettes by Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[wcmartell]

I don't think it's about the economy... In my blog entry on fixing the Oscars (right after the telecast) I suggested the same thing.
http://sex-in-a-sub.blogspot.com/2008/03/fixing-oscar.html

I thought they should use the commercials during the Oscars as they do the commercials during the Superbowl - make them part of the show. Hold all of the trailers for the really big sumer movies or holiday films and premiere them on the Oscars. People would tune in just to see the hot new trailers.

One of my other suggestions was to take the Oscars back to the old days - when only wide release studio films were allowed (because that's all that existed). And turn the Spirits into a *big event* awards show on Saturday night. Two big awards shows - with *different* movies.

All of this is about turning the Oscars back into something important - something that people *must* watch. This year, nobody watched... nobody cared about the movies in the running. And that hurts those films... and the film industry.

- Bill