Giving Oscar a social media facelift
Mar 3, 2010, 11:33 AM | Updated: Mar 28, 2011, 3:46 pm
Hollywood, obsessed with youth, has asked Oscar to get a little plastic surgery. He’s undergoing a social media nip and tuck with the hope of lifting sagging Academy Awards television ratings.
Viewership last year was down 13%. One much-talked-about change with this year’s show was having 10 nominees in the Best Picture Category. A more subtle change has been having Oscar get involved with social media.
When the nominees were announced, they were streamed live online for the first time. More than 170,000 viewers watched that on Oscar.com.
Fans who are really into it will be checking their iPhones. Yep, there’s an app for Oscar. You can see how your predictions stack up against others. The Academy also plans to release behind-the-scenes footage from the rehearsals leading up to Sunday night’s show.
One thing that won’t be present in the live telecast, however, is an interactive use of Twitter or its Facebook fan page. That’s something the show producers pushed for, but Academy execs were nervous about too many details about the broadcast leaking out.
If the online buzz is accurate, Avatar will win big Sunday. Nielsen reports that movie has dominated more than a quarter of the publicity and talk show conservations. Avatar’s next closest challenger is The Hurt Locker.
My favorite movie guy, Tom Tangney, has seen all of the best picture nominees. He’s even seen films with subtitles in obscure categories. He’ll talk about the Oscars with me during the next couple of mornings on 97.3 KIRO FM. Join us between 5 and 9 a.m. And let me know what I missed out on by only seeing one movie last year – Pixar’s “Up.” Loved it.
