Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs

[TP2000]

I mean even you have to look beyond just yourself and note that if you are having to plug it into your internet router and not directly your TV that they are looking beyond just TV devices and rather ALL devices that consume media.

I'm infamously self-absorbed, thus why I'm a lifelong confirmed bachelor. So I rarely look beyond myself. But even if Mr. Nielsen is tracking all of my Internet traffic, he won't find anything being watched on a telephone or iPad in my home.

The trend though sort of reset post-Covid, just like it did for the box office. So we have the pre-Covid trend and the post-Covid trend. And for the post-Covid trend its going UP UP UP, not down.

It'll be interesting to see if this trend continues next year and where that new median viewership is going to be, I suspect somewhere in the mid-20s but we'll see.

Let's not wait that long. Like the Plymouth dealer's used to say.... Suddenly It's 1960 2026! Here's that chart early.

 

[TP2000]

Crazy. I swear I'd never heard about any of it before either... was just picking the Oscars from 50 years ago because it was a nice, round number.

When I first mentioned Oscar's viewership in '75 I had actually wanted to start in the 60's, especially the first year they were in color in 1966. But apparently Nielsen didn't start to track Oscar's viewership until 1974, so the info on the televised period from 1953 to 1973 is murky, save for a faux Indian maiden being hustled past a furious John Wayne backstage.

So I just started at 1975, a year after Nielsen tracking began for the show, because it was exactly 50 years ago. Seems a good a point to start as anything, if you want to be able to use some basic facts and data. I don't know if '75 was a big year or a dud year for Oscar's viewership, as it does wax and wane depending on the popular movies of the day. But it seemed a good solid year, 50 years past, to start the conversation.

I have absolutely no idea how they tracked or reported radio listenership in the 40's and 50's, when the nationwide listenership for the 1946 Oscar's broadcast was pegged at 50 Million, or roughly 35% of the US population at that time.

 

[LittleBuford]

Something else that militates against the argument that political bias is the reason for the downturn in Oscars viewership is the fact that the numbers have dropped far more than would be the case if only one “side” were switching off. It’s clear that viewers across the ideological spectrum aren’t tuning in at the rate that they used to. Anecdotal, I know, but my own (very liberal) partner has stopped watching the Oscars in recent years (I myself have never watched them).

 

[TP2000]

As a fun point of reference for how low into irrelevance the Oscar's has fallen...

35% of Americans listened to the live nationwide radio broadcast in 1946.

35% of Americans in 2025 would be 119 Million people watching the TV broadcast today.

Instead, 19.7 Million people, or just 17% of 119 Million, watched the broadcast this past Sunday. And apparently, a Million of those were kids grounded in their room watching via their iPhone under the covers instead of doing their homework. Who knew?!?

 

[TP2000]

Something else that militates against the argument that political bias is the reason for the downturn in Oscars viewership is the fact that the numbers have dropped far more than would be the case if only one “side” were switching off. It’s clear that viewers across the ideological spectrum aren’t tuning in at the rate that they used to. Anecdotal, I know, but my own (very liberal) partner has stopped watching the Oscars in recent years (I myself have never watched them).

Why did he stop watching? And, pardon the age question, but is he old enough to remember the epic Oscar's Viewing Parties of the 1970's-2000's? They were simply fabulous. And routinely sinful. And very memorable.

Aside from suddenly getting annoyingly openly and unabashedly political, to the point that it was just offensive and blatantly elitist to the paying audience, how do you explain this type of drop off in just the past 10 years?

 

[LittleBuford]

Why did he stop watching?

I don’t know. He just lost interest in the ceremony, though he still follows the results. It certainly has nothing to do with politics for him.

Aside from suddenly getting annoyingly openly and unabashedly political, to the point that it was just offensive and blatantly elitist to the paying audience, how do you explain this type of drop off in just the past 10 years?

View attachment 847198

I don’t know how to explain it; the reasons seem multiple and complex to me. I’m just wary of a narrative that ties it all to (anti-conservative) political messaging yet doesn’t account for why liberals too have switched off in droves.

 

[Ghost93]

What's interesting is that it wasn't always that way. In the 90s, for instance, you've got popular movies like Dances with Wolves, Silence of the Lambs, Forrest Gump, and Titanic winning Best Picture. Schindler's List, Braveheart, and Unforgiven also did well at the box office.

I think that has shifted in the years since, with less popular movies winning more frequently now. I'm sure there are many factors that go into the change.

I think the real shift started happening around 2009 when Avatar — the biggest movie of the year — lost to The Hurt Locker, which was at the time the lowest grossing Best Picture winner. I'm not saying Avatar necessarily deserved to win (Inglorious Basterds would have been my pick for that year), but I think the Hurt Locker winning showed the Academy moving away from the buzziest film of the year towards smaller, critically acclaimed years.

The shift became more pronounced in 2016 when a crowdpleaser and old-school musical like La La Land lost to Moonlight, which is a great movie — but very arthouse and not likely to be enjoyed as much by mainstream moviegoers.

 

[TP2000]

I don’t know. He just lost interest in the ceremony, though he still follows the results. It certainly has nothing to do with politics for him.

Oh. Well, I can understand that. I lost interest too, once the parties died out. It was always such a decadent and silly night. But now it just seems... off-putting. And I agree that some of that transcends politics.

Perhaps because I know someone (long story) who tells me how many Millions of dollars and battalions of staffers and "little people" go into the simple act of getting a 42 year old actress still trying to pull off 31 down the red carpet on the first Sunday in March. It's an entire industry just for that one day. It's sort of icky. And very decadent and wasteful.

I don’t know how to explain it; the reasons seem multiple and complex to me. I’m just wary of a narrative that ties it all to (anti-conservative) political messaging yet doesn’t account for why liberals too have switched off in droves.

Again, I get that. The political messaging doesn't explain all of the huge drop in viewership in the past 10 years, it simply is a part of it. There's something else going on that turns folks off from both sides of the political spectrum.

But I was a bit shocked to learn ABC (Disney!) was shelling out $100 Million per year in an 8 year contract from 2020 thru 2028 that was pre-signed back in 2016. That's $800 Million they spent on a show that has seen its ratings collapse just around the time the new contract kicked in. That's gotta hurt, and no wonder why Disney failed to sign on for another contract extension this year when they still had the rights to it.

Burbank clearly sees where this once premiere annual experience is going now.

I wonder where the Oscars goes once ABC bows out in '28? On to Bravo or Hallmark or a streamer? And what does that do to the show itself? Not to mention the battalions of workers who are paid huge bucks for three months of work to get a 42 year old actress down the red carpet on the first Sunday in March?

The times they are a changin'.

 

[Disney Irish]

I'm infamously self-absorbed, thus why I'm a lifelong confirmed bachelor. So I rarely look beyond myself. But even if Mr. Nielsen is tracking all of my Internet traffic, he won't find anything being watched on a telephone or iPad in my home.

Well maybe look beyond yourself and realize it doesn't matter if YOU won't be watching on those devices in YOUR house, but rather that the Nielsen device is made to track more than just TV viewership.

Let's not wait that long. Like the Plymouth dealer's used to say.... Suddenly It's 1960 2026! Here's that chart early.

View attachment 847197

And maybe it will be at those levels, the point is and continues to be that the trend is going back up again with year-over-year gains for the last 4 years. So forget pre-pandemic levels and consider 2021 a reset, just like we do with the box office, and just start tracking post-pandemic levels. It may never get back to pre-pandemic levels, again just like the box office, but it can find a new median in this new trend.

 

[doctornick]

Something else that militates against the argument that political bias is the reason for the downturn in Oscars viewership is the fact that the numbers have dropped far more than would be the case if only one “side” were switching off. It’s clear that viewers across the ideological spectrum aren’t tuning in at the rate that they used to. Anecdotal, I know, but my own (very liberal) partner has stopped watching the Oscars in recent years (I myself have never watched them).

I don’t really harbor a strong opinion about this, but I can say that politics popping up places turns me off to wanting to watch that thing even when I fully agreed with the politics being displayed. If “politics” is the problem I can certainly see it affecting people of all persuasions just trying to escape that kind of talk.

 

[easyrowrdw]

Anyway, there's a pretty decent correlation (R^2 = .6566) between number of movie tickets sold and viewership of the following year's Oscars (using data back to 1995), which makes pretty good sense to me. If people come back to the theaters more and more, then these ratings should go up correspondingly.

That's really interesting and you’re actually underselling it! An r-squared value of 0.6566 is a correlation (r) of 0.81, which is very strong. R^2 of 0.6566 means ticket sales account for about 66% of the variability in Oscar rating. That's a lot.

 

[LittleBuford]

I don’t really harbor a strong opinion about this, but I can say that politics popping up places turns me off to wanting to watch that thing even when I fully agreed with the politics being displayed. If “politics” is the problem I can certainly see it affecting people of all persuasions just trying to escape that kind of talk.

This is fair, though it doesn't really reflect how the argument is usually framed (as one side alienating the other), nor does it address why the presence of political content seems not to have hurt viewership figures before the last decade or so.

 

[DKampy]

This is fair, though it doesn't really reflect how the argument is usually framed (as one side alienating the other), nor does it address why the presence of political content seems not to have hurt viewership figures before the last decade or so.

Yes… it is very one sided… including our Martini loving dog who says politics should stay away from late night talk shows… but watches Gutfeld)the most unfunny person I have ever witnessed IMO)every night on Fox by his own admission

 

[easyrowrdw]

Her purported Native ancestry has been disputed by multiple family members. Mary Louise Cruz.

Supposedly John Wayne was waiting in the wings and six men had to stop him from forcing her off stage.

As it turns out, the John Wayne story is mostly likely a myth. The original article from film critic Farran Smith Nehme is quite long, but here's an overview from the LA Times.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Something else that militates against the argument that political bias is the reason for the downturn in Oscars viewership is the fact that the numbers have dropped far more than would be the case if only one “side” were switching off. It’s clear that viewers across the ideological spectrum aren’t tuning in at the rate that they used to. Anecdotal, I know, but my own (very liberal) partner has stopped watching the Oscars in recent years (I myself have never watched them).

This is why I listed a half dozen reasons why I‘ve stopped watching, it’s death by a thousand cuts rather than a single reason.

My guess is the #1 reason for the decline is simply options, when I was a kid we had 3 channels and an awards show was very likely the best thing on TV that night.

My guess for #2 is that actors, and Hollywood in general, are far less glorified now than they used to be. Between never ending tweets, interviews, blogs, etc we know far too much about celebrities now, they aren’t the mythical creatures we built them up to be a couple decades ago. There was a time we placed celebrities on a pedestal and wanted to know more about their personal lives, with so much social media now I think most people would prefer to know less about them.

Politics kind of overlaps with #2 but politics itself would fall well below those 2 for my “why” I stopped watching.

 

[Disney Irish]

This is why I listed a half dozen reasons why I‘ve stopped watching, it’s death by a thousand cuts rather than a single reason.

My guess is the #1 reason for the decline is simply options, when I was a kid we had 3 channels and an awards show was very likely the best thing on TV that night.

My guess for #2 is that actors, and Hollywood in general, are far less glorified now than they used to be. Between never ending tweets, interviews, blogs, etc we know far too much about celebrities now, they aren’t the mythical creatures we built them up to be a couple decades ago. There was a time we placed celebrities on a pedestal and wanted to know more about their personal lives, with so much social media now I think most people would prefer to know less about them.

Politics kind of overlaps with #2 but politics itself would fall well below those 2 for my “why” I stopped watching.

I think this is the reasons why the older generations started falling off. But on the flip side I think #2 is the reason why the younger generation is starting to see a rise, they follow all their favorite young celebrities on social media and prior to recent years many of their favorite young celebrities weren't being honored or even going to the awards. I mean all you have to do is look at the crop of films and actors nominated in each category for years its swung older rather than younger. With now popular younger celebrities like Ariana Grande and Mikey Madison being nominated and attending and now the latter winning its having the effect of bringing in the younger generation to watch the show. I think this is going to be seen even more so in next years viewership numbers, especially with Wicked Part 2 likely being nominated once again, alongside its young stars.

 

[TP2000]

Yes… it is very one sided… including our Martini loving dog who says politics should stay away from late night talk shows… but watches Gutfeld)the most unfunny person I have ever witnessed IMO)every night on Fox by his own admission

I happily watch Gutfeld! at least 3 or 4 nights per week because it's marketed specifically as a Political Commentary/Humor show. It's on a dedicated cable news network after all, so it's not trying to be The Tonight Show or Ed Sullivan.

I also find the format interesting and refreshing; four informed people sitting around talking and laughing at stuff from the day's news for an hour. No band, no musical guest, no Ed McMahon sipping Scotch out of a coffee mug on the couch, just witty banter and commentary about the day's news.

I miss the heyday of Johnny Carson and David Letterman just like you probably do. I was a bigger Letterman fan in the 80's than I was ever a Carson fan, and some of Letterman's skits and bits still crack me up on YouTube over 40 years later. Larry Bud Melman offering hot towels to arriving bus passengers at the Port Authority still makes me fall off the couch!

But there's a reason why Gutfeld! has higher ratings than any of the other late night talk shows. He clearly cracked a code.

How Greg Gutfeld Became the Bill Maher of Fox News — And Toppled Fallon and Colbert in the Ratings

Greg Gutfeld sounds off in a new Variety cover story on toppling Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel in the ratings.

variety.com

 

[brideck]

But there's a reason why Gutfeld! has higher ratings than any of the other late night talk shows. He clearly cracked a code.

Or... he just happens to be on a channel whose viewership watches precious little else on TV. Most everyone else splits their ballots with what they watch, so to speak.

 

[erasure fan1]

Or... he just happens to be on a channel whose viewership watches precious little else on TV. Most everyone else splits their ballots with what they watch, so to speak.

That's true, but I don't think that's the root of it. Yea people watch Gutfeld because that's what they're looking for. But I think people like Kimmel and Fallon aren't giving their fans what they want. Funny entertaining content, not political commentary. So in my opinion it's more about Kimmel and Falon tanking their ratings more than gutfeld beating them.

 

[easyrowrdw]

Yes, twice. The plagiarism concerns were my key area of focus, I wasn’t going to them with essentially grievances on data interpretation or articles lacking a central thesis.

I demonstrated in a few minutes how the most recent Paris articles self plagerized large passages from at least three different past articles (that I found after a few minutes of googling on my phone). Also that it plagerized another author from the Tribune. Most of her articles were similarly formed, eventually I left it on its in their court to see how badly it pervades the last several years.

Nice! Sadly, I feel like self-plagiarism and inbreeding (publications just linking to their other marginally relevant articles) is pretty common these days. Hopefully Forbes starts to uphold a higher standard. Thanks for updating us.

I think the real shift started happening around 2009 when Avatar — the biggest movie of the year — lost to The Hurt Locker, which was at the time the lowest grossing Best Picture winner. I'm not saying Avatar necessarily deserved to win (Inglorious Basterds would have been my pick for that year), but I think the Hurt Locker winning showed the Academy moving away from the buzziest film of the year towards smaller, critically acclaimed years.

The shift became more pronounced in 2016 when a crowdpleaser and old-school musical like La La Land lost to Moonlight, which is a great movie — but very arthouse and not likely to be enjoyed as much by mainstream moviegoers.

Good point. I thought Hurt Locker was great, but I get the point. That was also the first year of the expanded nomination list, after a lot of people were upset that The Dark Knight didn't receive a Best Picture nomination.