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

[TP2000]

You're a Nielsen "family," so if you read the instructions you should understand how this all works.

They sent me a small box, only slightly larger than a deck of cards, that is plugged in to my Internet router, from which my various Xumo boxes in the house operate via WiFi.

This is perhaps because during their second and far more elaborate survey I told them I do not watch TV shows on my phone or computer, because I don't.

I can easily imagine that if a Nielsen Family says yes on that part of the survey, they coordinate some other type of tracking device or format for them. Who knows how that works? But for me, it's just my TV sets. YMMV.

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.

I think what we're seeing the past few years is just a continuation of the trend that began in 2015. It crashed during Covid, and they've recovered from that. But the trendline is clear, and they still haven't returned to their pre-Covid viewership of 2020.

If you ignore the Covid Crash of 2021-2023 and observe the smoothed out trendline, it was a gradual decline from 2000 to 2014, then a complete nosedive from 2015 to 2025. Will the Oscars ever get back to the 23.6 Million they had in 2020?

 

[TP2000]

You assumed he read it and understood it. I mean we know he doesn't follow their basic instructions of not talking about it on the internet since he posted proudly here about it.

I excuse it away in my mind after being kicked out of church in the 70's for my sinful lifestyle choices.

I mean, if I'm going to Hell anyway, why not break a few more rules just for giggles?

 

[Tha Realest]

Aside from that young Indian lady who accepted an award for someone (I can't remember who) and gave a short protest speech on the plight of the American Indian, which elicited boos from the celebrity audience, I can't think of any big political moments or themes during the 1970's shows. And then John Wayne got all upset about it, which fueled the stunt further.

I may have just forgotten, and I'm sure there was something besides the Indian lady, but the tone and shift was noticeable and rather off-putting in the 2010's. I don't remember the 70's Oscars being that way year after year, much less the 80's or 90's.

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.

 

[TP2000]

Ok Boomer, or maybe realize that not everyone consumes media via a TV anymore, this isn't 1972 where a household only consumes media via a single TV and everyone gathers around it to watch the Brady Bunch.

Oh, I had no idea. No wonder I'm tired more often now.

But still it shows the Oscars, something you should be raving about, seems to be making a trend back in the right direction with viewership on the rise. And that its the younger generation that is paving the way for this. So you can rest assured that there may actually be a resurgence of your classic Oscar parties you mourn aren't happening anymore.

The trendline is still down from its already crashing pre-Covid numbers for the 18-49 demographic.

In 2020, the Oscars had 23.64 Million viewers, with a 5.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

In 2025, the Oscars had 19.69 Million viewers, with a 4.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

Having your 18-49 demographic shed several Million viewers over a five year period is not something to be happy about. Especially if you are Disney and back in 2016 you agreed to pay $100 Million per year for the TV rights contract through 2028 to watch your audience disappear.

ABC SIGNS EXPANSIVE NEW AGREEMENT TO BROADCAST THE OSCARS®, HOLLYWOOD’S BIGGEST ENTERTAINMENT CEREMONY, THROUGH 2028 | Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

www.oscars.org

 

[Disney Irish]

They sent me a small box, only slightly larger than a deck of cards, that is plugged in to my Internet router, from which my various Xumo boxes in the house operate via WiFi.

This is perhaps because during their second and far more elaborate survey I told them I do not watch TV shows on my phone or computer, because I don't.

I can easily imagine that if a Nielsen Family says yes on that part of the survey, they coordinate some other type of tracking device or format for them. Who knows how that works? But for me, it's just my TV sets. YMMV.

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 think what we're seeing the past few years is just a continuation of the trend that began in 2015. It crashed during Covid, and they've recovered from that. But the trendline is clear, and they still haven't returned to their pre-Covid viewership of 2020.

If you ignore the Covid Crash of 2021-2023 and observe the smoothed out trendline, it was a gradual decline from 2000 to 2014, then a complete nosedive from 2015 to 2025. Will the Oscars ever get back to the 23.6 Million they had in 2020?

View attachment 847177

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.

 

[Disney Irish]

The trendline is still down from its already crashing pre-Covid numbers for the 18-49 demographic.

In 2020, the Oscars had 23.64 Million viewers, with a 5.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

In 2025, the Oscars had 19.69 Million viewers, with a 4.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

Having your 18-49 demographic shed several Million viewers over a five year period is not something to be happy about. Especially if you are Disney and back in 2016 you agreed to pay $100 Million per year for the TV rights contract through 2028 to watch your audience disappear.

ABC SIGNS EXPANSIVE NEW AGREEMENT TO BROADCAST THE OSCARS®, HOLLYWOOD’S BIGGEST ENTERTAINMENT CEREMONY, THROUGH 2028 | Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

www.oscars.org

As said above, maybe look at just the post-Covid and specifically the year-over-year numbers and see the trend is starting to change.

Also who cares if Disney spent $100M almost 10 years ago that money is already spent. Also they have been prepping for the decline in linear viewership now for almost the same amount of time. And if they drop the Oscars and it goes somewhere else to be broadcast because of numbers they don't find lucrative, then so be it. As said the Oscars will continue on even if there are no viewers because its an awards show for Hollywood by Hollywood.

 

[brideck]

It puzzles me that so many cite political content as the reason the Oscars have lost viewership. Probably the most political moments in the ceremonies’ history occurred in the ’70s, long before the drop in figures.

I decided to put this to the test and randomly watched the 1975 awards show*, and it was an interesting time capsule. There wasn't anything at all about Nixon, even though he'd just resigned and been pardoned in the last year, but the emcees (Bob Hope, Shirley MacLaine, Sammy Davis Jr., & Frank Sinatra) definitely made some political jokes and Sinatra was outright offensive to my ears.

The winners for Best Documentary (Hearts & Minds, a Vietnam documentary) read a letter from a Vietnamese leader as part of their acceptance speech. Over an hour later in the broadcast, Sinatra made a statement saying that the Academy apologizes for any political statements made by winners earlier in the evening. Apparently, this statement didn't actually come from the Academy, but from Bob Hope.

There was also a great deal of commentary from the old fuddie duddies emceeing the event about the permissive content starting to show up in the New Hollywood era of movies, which is rich if you know anything about Frank Sinatra's personal life. And multiple jokes were made at Dustin Hoffman's expense, who was boycotting the ceremony due to its garishness or something like that.

So... not political? I don't think so. Perhaps politicization is mostly only picked up on if you happen to disagree with the statements being made.

Fun aside: Two future stars of the Star Wars Holiday Special were up for Best Actor/Actress awards -- Art Carney and Diahann Carroll. Carney actually inexplicably won Best Actor that year, beating out Al Pacino (The Godfather Part II), Jack Nicholson (Chinatown), Dustin Hoffman (Lenny), and Albert Finney (Murder on the Orient Express) -- a real murderer's row of contenders.

*Anyone can!
)

 

[BrianLo]

Interesting! Did they reply to you saying something? Is it possible she's just on vacation?

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.

 

[Agent H]

Yes, twice. The plagiarism concerns with the 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 three different past articles that I found and actually plagerized another author from the tribute. Most of her articles were similarly formed.

Wow! Good on you for doing something about this. You have made the world a better place.

 

[LittleBuford]

Aside from that young Indian lady who accepted an award for someone (I can't remember who) and gave a short protest speech on the plight of the American Indian, which elicited boos from the celebrity audience, I can't think of any big political moments or themes during the 1970's shows. And then John Wayne got all upset about it, which fueled the stunt further.

I may have just forgotten, and I'm sure there was something besides the Indian lady, but the tone and shift was noticeable and rather off-putting in the 2010's. I don't remember the 70's Oscars being that way year after year, much less the 80's or 90's.

This might jog your memory:

Politics and Oscar Night

 

[LittleBuford]

Another link for anyone interested:

Revisiting an Oscar Night Controversy — in 1975

By 1967, the commercial and political impact on Hollywood of the sixties counterculture had become impossible to ignore. The studios were in bad shape, still contending with a generation-long box office slump and struggling to get young people into the habit of going to the movies. Film historian J

www.ucpress.edu

 

[brideck]

Another link for anyone interested:

Revisiting an Oscar Night Controversy — in 1975

By 1967, the commercial and political impact on Hollywood of the sixties counterculture had become impossible to ignore. The studios were in bad shape, still contending with a generation-long box office slump and struggling to get young people into the habit of going to the movies. Film historian J

www.ucpress.edu

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.

 

[LittleBuford]

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.

It certainly helps to put things in perspective.

 

[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.