What’s a good rescue strategy do we think for the Oscar telecast? ¬†It seems they’ve tried lots of new techniques to spruce things up – some complete disasters (having the winners in the tech categories stand up in the audience – what hath god wrought), and some decent attempts at fixing things — all of the previous winners on stage paying tribute to the new winner. ¬†Ratings dip and rise ever-so-slightly and then dip again. ¬†The problem isn’t so much with the telecast. ¬†It’s with what has sprouted like an uncontrollable garden of more thriving weeds around it.
The Oscar telecast is from a different time. ¬†The last two decades have seen the evolution of television in a couple of different directions. The first, and most important — the rise of the cable channels. ¬†So now there are the MTV movie awards and all manner of mind-numbing shows for large crowds of people who really do seem to flock to them, with little regard to who wins what or why. ¬†Really, no one seems to care about the Grammys either. ¬†And then you have the Globes and the Critics Choice and the SAGs — who cares by the time the Oscars roll around.
The other important evolution of late is the rise of reality, or un-scripted TV shows which have all but taken over — Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, Survivor, and So You Think You Can Dance are the competition shows Americans seem to want to watch. ¬†So why, you have to ask them, would they bother with the Oscars? ¬†They have everything they could ever want in the dumb unscripted dramas – they have their own protagonists, their scrappy underdogs, their unbeatable champs, their surprise endings – but most of all — they get to vote on the winners.
The difference with the Oscars is that we’re asking an audience to care about winners they A) didn’t vote on, B) probably never even saw most of the films up for the award, and C) don’t really give a crap about anyway because they’ve never heard of most of the stars. ¬†Most importantly, though, they feel left out of the experience entirely.
So, here is my proposal to the Academy — and I think it’s a good one. ¬†Follow the BAFTAs model and have a people’s choice award for a rising star, a veteran or a film. ¬†One award that the people get to vote on. ¬†I really think that could do a couple of things. ¬†The first, it could bring in lots and lots of viewers who might actually care about the outcome of ONE award. ¬†The second, it could bring popular entertainment back to the Oscars where it has all but vanished. ¬†Imagine if voters could have voted on a separate Best Picture prize? You know Inception would have won it. ¬†Or Toy Story 3. ¬†Either way? It’s a win-win. The Academy can still have their own Best Picture winner, as the BAFTA do, and the public could be involved at the same time.
As far as the show itself? ¬†Bring Bill Condon back. ¬†That’s their only hope. Tina Fey, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. ¬†Or Charlie Sheen.
How about you? How can the AMPAS rescue the Oscars?
