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

[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.

 

[Disney Irish]

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.

Not to continue this non-Oscars/non-box office discussion, but lets also not get things twisted here, we're talking about a show that only gets an average of 2.5M viewers. And while that might be more than other late night shows, its certainly not blowing the doors off any ranking list other than late night. It should also be noted that a majority of those viewers skew older, with only ~355K of them being 25-54 which in itself is low in my opinion even if they have had some gains recently it isn't a trend I see changing as the show will remain predominately older. The whole network tends to also skew older, but that is another discussion.

And just to show I play fair, here is an article in which it talks about the shows gains -

Year-End Ratings: Gutfeld! Sees Huge Gains in 2024 - LateNighter

Ratings numbers for TV's traditional late-night shows may be on a steady decline, but it's an entirely different story over at Fox News' Gutfeld!, which saw huge viewership gains this year.

latenighter.com

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

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.

I don’t find any of them particularly funny, when I was younger I used to love Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert but then they pivoted too far from sarcastic commentary to political commentary. Ironically I find myself watching Bill Maher more than any of them now, someone I used to absolutely loathe.

My favorite right now is Jillian Michaels on YouTube because she brings everyone on and just talks different opinions like I think normal people do, she defends her position but doesn’t seem to be pushing any agenda beyond let’s sit down and talk, which I find refreshing. Similar to how Joe Rogan became so popular, he argues his point but he’ll also entertain the other sides argument and will invite anyone on his show whether he agrees with them or not.

 

[erasure fan1]

but lets also not get things twisted here, we're talking about a show that only gets an average of 2.5M viewers

Exactly, that's why I said he's not beating them. And what you are saying is exactly the indictment im talking about with the traditional late night shows. They're beating themselves.

 

[Disney Irish]

Exactly, that's why I said he's not beating them. And what you are saying is exactly the indictment im talking about with the traditional late night shows. They're beating themselves.

I would agree, but not for the reason you think. I just think that most of the older generations have moved on, and most of the younger generations aren't watching late night in general. So its not politics in my opinion, as I would think that is fairly even in terms of amount when compared to someone like Gutfeld, its just now a different era where late night is no longer in favor compared to other forms of entertainment. Maybe that changes and things swing back, who knows.

 

[erasure fan1]

I just think that most of the older generations have moved on, and most of the younger generations aren't watching late night in general.

My question would be why did the older gen move on? I know for me it was I didn't want to watch comedians give me serious political talk. I wanted funny and entertaining. I can see what you're saying with the younger people. I know I rarely watched unless a band I wanted to see was on. So late night talk always skewed older in my opinion.

So its not politics in my opinion, as I would think that is fairly even in terms of amount when compared to someone like Gutfeld, its just now a different era where late night is no longer in favor compared to other forms of entertainment.

I think people tune in to gutfeld because they want that political satire. I'm not saying it's 100% political, nothing is 100% anything. But it sure looks like with the drops, politics was a significant factor. And since, like you said, other forms of entertainment are readily available, people are going elsewhere. I noticed when the drops really became noticable, was after they went all in with politics. Maybe it's just coincidence? I will also accept as an answer that fallon, kimmel, myers... Are just unfunny and not really good at their jobs.

 

[Disney Irish]

My question would be why did the older gen move on? I know for me it was I didn't want to watch comedians give me serious political talk. I wanted funny and entertaining. I can see what you're saying with the younger people. I know I rarely watched unless a band I wanted to see was on. So late night talk always skewed older in my opinion.

I think people tune in to gutfeld because they want that political satire. I'm not saying it's 100% political, nothing is 100% anything. But it sure looks like with the drops, politics was a significant factor. And since, like you said, other forms of entertainment are readily available, people are going elsewhere. I noticed when the drops really became noticable, was after they went all in with politics. Maybe it's just coincidence? I will also accept as an answer that fallon, kimmel, myers... Are just unfunny and not really good at their jobs.

Well as the saying goes, correlation is not causation. I don't think any one factor did it, its a combination of factors, and really like I mentioned I think its just a matter of a large number entertainment options being the largest factor across the different age groups and late night being more of an older generation thing rather than something that younger generations are picking up. As you'd think if it was just political there would be a general increase in viewership by those that agree with the political leanings of the hosts no matter the show if that was the case, and its just not, again no matter the show.

 

[Ghost93]

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.

While I believe The Dark Knight should have been nominated and won Best Picture in 2008, Slumdog Millionare was still a pretty great movie and it made a decent amount of money at the box office ($378 million in 2008). Slumdog made much, much more than more modern winners like Anora or the Shape of Water or Moonlight.