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Media Trends 2016
The most enjoyable pieces we pen for this blog are our looks ahead to TMT trends in the next year (they also, coincidentally, happen to be our most popular articles). Do check out our 2015 and 2014 trends, too.
We’ll look at trends in the film industry, TV, telco and tech sector. These formerly discrete industries are now all blurring together. This should come as little surprise to most, after years of the word “convergence” being bandied about; AOL Time Warner was a misbegotten adventure on the back of this thesis. However, what is happening now is that these worlds are clashing. Techies push their platforms (e.g. the Amazons and Netflixs of the world), but increasingly follow in the footsteps of legacy media in creating a stable of content to offer viewers. But those legacy media players are fretting, according to the Financial Times,
According to cable industry die-hards who have the most to lose, the digital platforms have not done much to show they are appropriate guardians of media assets like these. According to cable pioneer John Malone, for instance, they do not do enough to differentiate media brands, they make it hard to get feedback about consumers (if the data are not passed on) and they are not conducive to the kind of advertising on which cable networks have long relied. The result is a giant searchable database, like Netflix.
Star Wars and the status quo
It would be difficult to write about the media sector currently without giving Star Wars: The Force Awakens at least a mention. The movie, which Zeitgeist saw last weekend, was huge fun, though we couldn’t help feeling like we were watching a re-imagining of the original, rather than a direct sequel. As fivethirtyeight notes, the prequels are out there now, and not going anywhere; this film faces a steep uphill battle if it is to redeem the franchise from the deficit of awfulness inflicted by the prequel triplets. The amount of money the film has made, and the critical caveats it has received, point to interesting trends in the film industry as a whole.
The Economist rightly points out how Bob Iger, since taking the reins of Disney from the erratic Michael Eisner in 2005, has made wise, savvy strategic moves, not least in content, through the purchases of Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm. But while most critics were pleased with the latest product to spring from this studio’s loins, there were some reservations. The FT, while largely positive about the film, lamented there was little in it to distinguish itself from the other tentpole films of the year:
What troubles most is that Star Wars is starting to look like every other franchise epic. Is that the cost of anything-is-possible stories set in elastic universes? I kept having flashes of The Hunger Games and The Lord of the Rings. The characters costumed in quasi-timeless garb (neo-Grecian the favourite). The PlayStation plots with their gauntlets of danger and games of survival.
Recent releases are increasingly making their way onto the best-performing list, with increasing speed, too. Three films have crossed the $1bn barrier this year alone
There’s no doubt this is a problem. It’s not per se a new problem, as originality has always been something Hollywood has struggled with. Let’s be honest, art has struggled with originality too; Shakespeare’s MO was derivative, and has there been anything new to say in art since Duchamp? But the fact remains that when studios have the technical sophistication to produce any visual feat, and this is executed again and again in much the same mode, the effect on an audience begins to wane, and everything begins to look much of a muchness (if not outright neo-Grecian).
Also somewhat unsettling is the financial performance of these films. Not so much because of the people who will still turn out in droves to see recycled content, but more the pace at which records are now being broken. The new Star Wars made $100m in pre-sales – a record – and went on to make $248m in its opening weekend, beating the previous holder, all the way back in the summer, Jurassic World. The speedy gains of lucre for such fare are increasing. Titanic took three months to reach the $1bn mark at the global box office; Jurassic World took 13 days, beating the previous record holder, Fast and the Furious 7, which had opened only a few months earlier in April. In the ten years after Titanic, only three films crossed the zeitgeist-worthy Rubicon of $1 billion; since 2008, 17 films have done so (see above graphic).
Such potential return on investment ups the ante for ever bigger projects, something Zeitgeist has criticised several times in previous articles, wary of some of the huge, costly flops that have come and gone with little strategic reflection. The latest Bond incarnation, Spectre, was always going to be something of a safe bet. But with so much upfront investment, such vehicles now need to make all the more in order to recoup what has been spent. Or, as Vanity Fair puts it, “yes, 007 made obscene amounts of money. But were they obscene enough?“. Tentpoles have taken on new meaning in an era of Marvel heroes, and even Bond itself has set new benchmarks with Skyfall, which crossed the hallowed billion-dollar barrier referenced earlier. This quickly begins to seem less earth-shattering when you consider the all-in costs for Spectre have been conservatively estimated at $625m. Even with Skyfall, Sony itself made only $57m in return.
Trend implication: There is a glimmer of innovation in the Chinese film market, where blockbusters are being crowdfunded through WeChat. But in Hollywood, the focus of money on one type of film – and the attempt to capture only one type of audience – logically leads to a bifurcation in the market, with bigger hits, bigger misses, and a hole in the middle,which The New York Times points out is usually where Oscars are made. A large problem that will not be addressed in 2016 is the absence of solid research and strategic insight; studios don’t know when or whether they “have released too many movies that go after the same audience — ‘Steve Jobs’ ate into ‘The Walk’ ate into ‘Black Mass’, for example”. With Men in Black 4 on the way, Hunger Games prequels being mulled, another five years of Marvel movies already slated and dates booked in, look for such machinations to continue. Bigger budgets, more frequent records being broken and a stolid resistance to multi-platform releases. Even Star Wars couldn’t get a global release date, with those in China having to wait a month longer than those elsewhere to see it, more or less encouraging piracy. Let’s just pray that Independence Day 2 gets its right…
TV’s tribulations
Despite all our claims of problems with the film industry, we must concede its financial performance this year will be one for the record books (particularly with some added vim from Star Wars). The TV sector, on the other hand, has had a decidedly worse year. For while Hollywood’s problems may be existential and longer-term, television must really start fundamentally addressing existing business models, today.
The rise of OTTs such as Netflix – not to mention the recently launched premium content service from Google, YouTube Red – has no doubt contributed to a sudden hastening in young adults who have dropped (or simply never had) a cable subscription. In the US, latest data recently reported from Pew research show 19% of 18-29s in the US have dropped their TV / cable service to become cord-cutters (or cord-nevers). The pace of change is quickening, according to eMarketer, who recorded a 12.5% leap in cord-cutting activity YoY.
Cognisant of such shifts, organisations have begun seeking remedy. In November, Fox became the first broadcast network to drop same-day ratings provided by Nielsen to the press, recognising that they “don’t reflect how we monetise our content,” and hoping to “move the ratings conversation into the future”. General Electric meanwhile, is stop advertising on prime-time television, instead keeping its budget for live events. This makes sense as it is this type of programming that typically lures large, diverse and timely audiences to content. Most interestingly, however, Disney, who seems to feature a lot in this post, is launching its own digital subscription service, aggregating its film, TV, books and music assets together. The FT notes it will be “the biggest media company yet to stream its content directly to consumers online”.
With the increasing popularity of OTT platforms, some are trying to get audiences to rediscover the joy of serendipity again. A new company, Molotov, aims to combine “the best elements of schedules, streaming and social media… Even if it does not take off, it neatly identifies the challenge facing broadcasters and technology companies: how can TV be better? And is there still life in the television schedule?“. Its UX has been compared to Spotify, allows a personalised programming guide, as well as bookmarking shows, actors and politicians. Moreover, Molotov also lets viewers know which shows are particularly popular on social media, as well as which of their Facebook friends like particular shows. “The idea”, written in the FT, “is to be a one-stop shop for audiences by replacing dozens of apps on Apple TV, or indeed an entire cable box”. Indeed, China is struggling with the linear world of television and film, uncertain about how to regulate offensive or violent content in a world without watershed or clear boundaries for regulation beyond towing the political line. For its part, the BBC will be fervently hoping that there remains life in the television schedule. With its Charter up for review, the future of the organisation is currently in question, to the extent that anyone can try their hand at getting the appropriate funding for the Beeb, with this handy interactive graphic.
Trend implication: OTTs like Netflix will continue to gain ground as they publish more exclusive content, though there is a risk such actions lead to brand diffusion, and confusion over what audiences should expect from such properties. Business models for content are increasingly being rewritten; excited as we are that The X-Files is returning to Fox in January, the real benefactor is apparently Netflix. Like it or not (we happen to think it’s a savvy strategic move), Disney’s plan to launch a subscription service online is innovative in its ambition to combine multiple media under one roof, and illustrates the company has recognised it has a sufficiently coherent brand (unlike Netflix) that can make for competitive differentiation as it faces off against other walled gardens. Advertising revenues, like cable subscription revenues, will continue to slide; there’s not much anyone, even Disney can do about that. Such slides though are unlikelt to deter continued mergers on the part of telcos; one in five pay TV subscriptions now go to these companies. Molotov sounds like an intriguing approach to reinventing a product long overdue for a renaissance… will such a renaissance come too late for the BBC though?
The X-Files returns to the Fox network in January, but it is Netflix that will really benefit
Tech opportunities and pitfalls
The tech sector as a whole, which continues to spit out unicorns, was deemed to be heading for a burst bubble, according to The Economist: “There are 144 unicorns valued at $505bn between them, about five times as many as three years ago. Most are unprofitable”. Equally disconcerting for the sector must have been Donald Trump, who has been consistently dismissed by mainstream media types since the summer but continues to roll on through the Republican presidential primaries. In his most recent itchy trigger-finger solution to the world’s woes, he suggested simply turning off the Internet in certain places. Apart from our understanding and appreciation of the Internet as one of the world’s liberating platforms that is one of the most tangible examples of man’s desire to communicate as one, this would apparently also be quite difficult.
Trend implication: Startup valuations do seem to be increasingly on the wild side, and there’s a good case to be made about the double-edged sword of such high valuations that dissuade companies from going public. There may possibly be a correction sometime next year; look for it to separate the wheat from the chaff. And while the idea of turning off the Internet is not without precedent, when did Iran last do something that the rest of the world thought was a good idea to emulate? Depriving people of the internet necessarily deprives people of information. On a macro level this can only be a bad thing. Its technical complexity and ethical murkiness make this an unlikely candidate for impact in 2016.
Amazon is having a rare sojourn in the black of late, with two consecutive quarters of profit. This is a rareity not because of any malpractice on Jeff Bezos’ part, rather because the mantra of the company has consistently been over the years to reinvest revenues into new development. Its brief profitability comes as the company’s cloud services, Amazon Web Services [AWS], become increasingly popular. As the Financial Times notes,
“In the latest quarter, [AWS profits] came to $521m on revenues of $2bn. That is roughly equivalent to the operating income of the entire core North American retail unit — a business with eight times the sales.”
Trend implication: Amazon’s growth may give some investors with a short-term eye succour for 2016 and a more profitable Amazon. But they should not be taken in so easily. Bezos’ long-term strategy remains investment for the future rather than a quick buck.
Facebook has been in the news for things positive and otherwise as it pushes the limits of innovation and unsurprisingly finds itself coming up against vested interests and the remits of regulatory bodies. It must also combat the same issues faced by other maturing companies, that of lower engagement and rising age groups. For example, 37% of users shared photos as of November, down from 59% a year earlier. In the meantime it is deploying some interesting tactical maneuvers, including more prominent featuring of events you are going to go, as well as ones you might be interested in attending. It also suggests events directly into status updates. Other timely reminders, reported in the WSJ, include “On Sept 27, it displayed an image of a crescent moon as a prompt about the supermoon lunar eclipse. In October, it worked with AMC Network Entertainment LLC to remind fans of “The Walking Dead” about the show’s season premiere”.
And while its partnership with Uber – embedding the service directly into its Messanger platform – is to be commended (WeChat’s ARPU by contrast is $7), it has struggled abroad. In India, one of several regions where it has agreed to zero-rated services with operators, net neutrality proponents are lobbying to have its Free Basic services shut down (while also raising noise about T-Mobile’s similar Binge On service in the US). Meanwhile, Whatsapp, the platform Facebook now owns, whose use has exploded in popularity in Jakarta, recently saw its service shut down for 12 hours in Brazil, affecting around 100 million people. Telco operators have been lobbying the government to label OTT services as illegal, but it seems that the government shut the service down in order to prevent gang members from communicating. This provoked much derision.
Trend implication: As Facebook’s audience continues to mature, macro engagement may continue to dip. Data on metrics such as average pieces of content shared by a user per month have not been updated since the company’s IPO. Facebook, as well as other OTT plaforms will continue to struggle in some respects in 2016, as both traditional players (e.g. telecom operators) and regulators seek to contain their plans. Operators in particular will have to increasingly lay ‘frenemies’ with OTTs that may offer value-add and competitive differentiation with the right partnership, yet at the same time eat away at their revenues. Continued security threats, whether cyber or physical terrorism, may mean, that, like Trump’s comments above, services continue to see brief disruption in 2016 in various regions. Net neutrality rulings in the US and Europe will also have an impact on the tech sector at large. It is likely to be laxer in Europe, which The Economist predicts will hurt startups.
Similarly impactful was the recent video of a drone crashing to the ground at a World Cup ski competition this week, which missed a competitor by what looked like a matter of feet and would have caused serious injury otherwise.
Trend implication: Despite such potential for grievous harm, there should generally be a quite liberalised framework for drone use. However, this needs to start with more prescriptive regulation that identifies the need for safety while recognising individual liberty
Oh, and Merry Christmas.
Up in smoke: Trends in buying movies and content ownership
Like the main protagonist in The Artist, film audiences are increasingly falling out of love with physical film. A recent IHS Screen Digest webinar presented some interesting notes on home entertainment trends around the world. Most of it was far from good news for media companies.
Emerging markets are where a lot of industries are currently looking to for growth, from WPP to the Catholic church. The film industry is seeing growth here, too. China, which last year relaxed its quota on the number of foreign films it allows into the market every year, has seen record box office takings of late, with the release of Titanic being a major highlight. Russia, too, is seeing a new audience for film. On a macro level, countries like India and Brazil are seeing a significant growth in the middle classes. In other words, a group of consumers that has a larger amount of discretionary spending. Some of this spending will be allocated to home entertainment, in the form of video players, be they DVD or Blu-ray. However, this jars with the global decline in physical media spend, as viewers switch in droves to streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon’s Lovefilm. Data from the IHS webinar revealed that the global growth in video players will not serve to offset the decline of spend on physical media.
As well as shifting from hard copy to soft copy products, consumers are also beginning to show a marked preference for renting over owning. This trend extends far beyond the film industry of course. Companies like Spotify spearheaded the idea in the music industry, the phrase “access trumps ownership” has long been a mantra there. The philosophy is affecting many lifestyle aspects, as demonstrated by The Economist’s recent front cover article. In Western Europe, rental is now the transactional consumption choice for digital movies. IHS data reported that the average US citizen rented 5.3 films last year. The company predicted that revenue from rentals will go up, returning to where they were in 2009, but in large part only because rental prices will go up. Dovetailing with the increasing consumer reluctance to buy physical discs is that the medium also appears “less and less attractive” for retailers. Blu-ray, which was supposed to revive the disc format, has not taken off in the way that was hoped; IHS data showed most Blu-ray owners still purchase a lot of movies on DVD rather than paying a premium for the HD version.
The move from physical to digital formats is troubling to media companies because, IHS report, “transactional online movie spending will not reach levels of physical spend” anytime soon. Indeed, theatrical is predicted to take up an ever larger slice of the pie (see above). This is without considering relative externalities, such as piracy, which remains a huge problem in Asia. And while consumer spending on online movies will almost double in AsPac, the share in wider consumer spending on movies in the region will not move beyond the current share before 2016.
One solace could be found in cinemas, a special haven for a medium without distractions, providing ample opportunity to leverage some of the more irrational desires and behaviours of consumers. We wrote briefly about various opportunities recently, and it’s reassuring to see the news earlier this month that Digital Cinema Media in the UK, an advertising sales house jointly owned by Odeon and Cineworld, will “in the coming months” launch a mobile app that will attempt to track cinema visits in order to feed data back to advertisers. In return, audiences will get exclusive content, vouchers or free ice cream. Given that the cinema is surely one of the few areas where you can pretty much guarantee a captive audience, this sounds like a great idea. How much it will offset lost revenues from home entertainment though remains an open question.
UPDATE (30/4/13): Data gathered can sometimes be misleading of course because it fails to report things that are not being measured. Such is the case with the current trend, recently reported by The New York Times, of sharing multi-platform viewing accounts for products like HBO Go among friends and even strangers. This trend represents a threat to revenue, but also an opportunity to create further loyalty, if used wisely. Forbes questioned the legality of such activity in a follow-up article.
Studying the Studio Brand
Apple’s powerful brand helps it sell its various computer devices to customers. Nike’s brand is similarly beneficial as far as sports shoes and apparel are concerned. Both brands have a certain ideology; cues that tip off the buyer as to what to expect from the product, or what kind of ethos they are buying into. Not so for a 20th Century Fox. With the 3D cash cow already struggling, what can film studios do to leverage affinity for their product?
In the early days of the filmmaking, the branding of a studio was more prevalent. The audience in turn, might have had more affinity for one studio over another, which may be what the choice comes down to when presented with a similar product – two asteroid films, for example, just like Nike must compete with other sneaker manufacturers. 20th Century Fox has a diverse stable of films, from Star Wars, Titanic and Avatar to Black Swan and The Wrestler. The latter two are produced by a subsidiary studio, focussed on smaller, art films, called Fox Searchlight. With such a narrow remit, it would be interesting to see the studio build its brand with consumers more, encouraging affinity. Could other subsidiary studios be created, in name only, to signal different genres and expectations to movie-going customers? They could take a leaf from Marvel’s marketing handbook, which, laden with the singularly uninspiring film Captain America, used the equity of the studio’s previous films to raise the hypothetical level of assumed quality: “From the Studio that brought you…”. It’s a great idea that could be used far more frequently by a greater number of studios.
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Making the Oscars more relevant
Are the Oscars as outdated as wearing your hat to work?
Last month, AMPAS celebrated a year of achievements in film, for the 87th time. In a recent article, the Financial Times lambasted the film industry for its overwhelming focus on high-risk, high-reward blockbusters and the death of middle-budget studio films, the likes of which were often lauded by the Academy. Viewing figures for the show in 2015 were the lowest in six years (though, let’s keep things in perspective, it was never watched by a billion people). In a guest post, M.K. Leibman looks at what’s going wrong with a format that has often been criticised as outmoded, if not inappropriate. M.K. is a native New Yorker with experience in film production. She hosts a popular blog where she often critiques film industry practice.
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It’s been a couple of weeks since The Academy Awards. Everyone’s think pieces have already been written, the internet has had its say and Hollywood has already returned to work on this years slate of new releases. It’s back to business as usual. Disappointed with the 18% decline in ratings, the industry assures us that “next year will be better”.
Others like Variety remain less convinced that will be the case.
In it’s incredibly popular piece, Variety stepped up the tone warning that things are unlikely to improve with the Oscars unless several changes are implemented. In its article, Variety noted six changes which should be implemented, notably the inclusion of more popular films as nominees, not televising technical awards, and reducing the run-time of the broadcast.
However, I argue that they don’t go far enough, or actually get to the core of what’s wrong with The Academy Awards. Looking at over 150 comments underneath the article, you could get a feel for what people actually thought was wrong with the ceremony, and it wasn’t giving stage time to the sound editor. The general consensus is: The Oscars just aren’t relevant any more to the average American.
Of course the Academy isn’t just going to throw up their hands and close up shop at this revelation. There needs to be massive changes implemented at all levels of the broadcast in order to sustain its future.
The first decision The Academy should make is to not re-hire show producers Craig Zadan and Neil Merron. They’ve had a run of three years and the show has failed to see a big boost in ratings. It’s not to say these two gentlemen aren’t very talented producers. However, to effectively implement change means to start those changes at the top in order to bring the show in a new direction.
Under the tutelage of Merron and Zadan, the Oscars have struggled to define their tone. In their first year as producers, they made a bold move and picked comedian Seth McFarlane to host the show. His performance drew ire from the older Academy voters and Hollywood for unorthodox jokes, while thoroughly pleasing the younger demographic. The next year they decided to change course drastically to compensate for offending many, hiring the lovable comic Ellen DeGeneres. After McFarlane’s raunchy style, Ellen just felt too clean and safe. While the broadcast was widely watched, the biggest moment felt like a corporate gimmick: a Samsung-sponsored selfie became the most re-tweeted image on Twitter of all time. Neil Patrick Harris was the producing duos most recent choice. He too was a very safe choice, and failed to leave his mark on the show – even feeling awkward at times with the written material he was given to present, such as the joke mocking the broadcasts lack of diversity.
The one common tone these hosts and their shows all share is that the modern Oscars also feel more like a Broadway musical than a celebration of film.
While some may like this Vaudevillian style, most people on social media and in the Variety comments section seemed tired of these long drawn out musical numbers. Several recent hosts have made the musical a centerpiece of their show, including McFarlane with the asinine “show me your boobs.” The Oscars isn’t a Broadway musical, it is a show that ought to celebrate film – not dance around to silly songs, or theme songs from movies made 50 years ago. Or worst of all, in the case of the 85th Academy Awards, to Merron’s own film Chicago in a rather transparent attempt at self promotion.
When asked about their strategy for taking over the Oscars three year ago, Neil Merron and Craig Zadan told Entertainment Weekly that they needed to both shorten the show while increasing the number of performances; an arguably impossible task. They decided to reduce the stage time for technical awards, seating them closer in order to reduce the walk-time to the stage for acceptance of awards (a total of 40 seconds). They reason this frees up more time for musicals and other in-between performances which in turn allegedly attracts more talent to want to attend the broadcast live. Unfortunately, this has failed to decrease the run time and this year’s ceremony nearly approached the four hour mark.
They need to cut out more of the musicals and, like the BAFTAs, eliminate the televised acceptance of technical awards. They need to do this no matter how loudly those technical trades collectively complain about it. By eliminating technical awards, the BAFTAs run on average an hour shorter than the Oscars. This may be a hard pill to swallow for some, but people just don’t have 3.5 hours to devote to an awards broadcast on a Sunday night.
Once we cut out all of the musical numbers and technical awards, what could they be replaced with?
For starters, hosts that can actually captivate an audience without song and dance and poorly-scripted spectacle. None of these hosts were the sort of folks that could get a family to want to sit in front to the TV together to watch. When you think of some of the more successful Oscars hosts throughout history, they were comedians who could naturally work a room, loved by many generations. The current Oscars feel victim to a teleprompter mentality, a hyper-scripted event that fails to feel authentic. In trying to achieve the right tone, the Oscars could benefit from handing the hosting job to a duo like Amy Poeler and Tina Fey, whose Golden Globes hosting gig remains one of the more talked about award shows in recent memory. Some have even suggested their former SNL co-star Jimmy Fallon, but even he feels too safe a choice and slightly over-exposed given his Tonight Show gig. The host needs to be a natural comedian or comedic duo, with more choice over the written material and someone who is not overexposed that plays well with multiple key demographics.
The other part of the tone that needs to change is its pretentiousness. There is no faster way to assure irrelevancy than if you make the Oscars into a club of pretentious film buffs. There needs to be more time devoted to financially successful films that captivated general audiences during the year, and less time making fun of them. You don’t need to give an award to the superhero films, but to mock – or worse, just ignore – their existence isn’t going to improve your ratings either. Perhaps add a segment which praises some of the more financially successful films of the year, or include a performance related to those popular films.
This years ceremony felt almost like the Independent Spirit Awards, the award show that nominates the best of independent cinema. In fact several of this years big winners were also indie films honored at the Spirit Awards. Apart from the film buff niche, the American public isn’t going to see films like Birdman or The Grand Budapest Hotel. That doesn’t mean, as Variety suggests, you need to honor tentpoles with Best Picture nominations, but it’s not like the studios didn’t put out good films people enjoyed which were also award-worthy; Gone Girl was but one notable snub in that arena. People care about the Oscars more when films they care about are nominated or win. The most successful year of all time was when megahit Titanic was nominated in 1998, that year saw 55.5 million viewers versus this years 34 million.
Did the mainstream cachet of David Fincher’s Gone Girl hinder its chances at further Academy recognition?
The other 800 pound gorilla in the room is diversity. While not discussed in the Variety article, a highly visible Oscars boycott took social media by storm under the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite and #BoycottOscars. The tweets were in the millions, suggesting the boycott was substantial according to the number of tweets supporting it. Upset by the lack of nominations for Selma and no people of color nominated for acting awards, many decided not to watch. Even Al Sharpton called off a protest of the red carpet, hours before the show was to begin at the request of Selma director Ava DuVernay.
Before one chalks this up to being just another case of social justice sentiment on social media, there are serious long-term financial ramifications. If viewers don’t see themselves represented on screen, or at the Oscars, they’re not going to watch. As America grows more diverse, with people of color expected to become the population majority by 2050, the Oscars need to do more to include illustrate this diversity in their broadcast. Granted, a chef is only as good as his ingredients, the show’s lack of diversity isn’t helped by the product released, which this year had a paucity of strong roles for women. As Variety commented at the time,
The Oscars need to find a way to appeal to young people, and people of color alike. The future of this show is not white people over 34, but the critical 18-34 demographic and minorities. This needs to be reflected not only in the broadcast’s format and demeanour, but also in the makeup of the Academy itself; 94% white, 76% men, 63 years old on average.
In order to remain relevant, the Oscars need to find a tone that can compete with people’s attention in a highly-distracting digital age. The Oscars are starting to feel too self-congratulatory, too Hollywood, despite the irony. Americans don’t feel represented by the choices the Academy makes. The musical nature of the show leaves many men out of the equation and the lack of diversity is off-putting to entire races. Yet I doubt most of these considerations will be on the table for next year’s show. I suspect another safe choice for host with a near four hour run time chock full of endless musicals, lack of diversity and self-congratulatory scripted satire which is bound to generate uncomfortable laughs – and in today’s day in age I just don’t know how much longer that format can last. When Americans don’t feel like they’re invested in the show, there are just too many other entertainment options in the present day than to have to tune in for what they know will be in the news tomorrow or on social media in seconds.