Oscars 2012: How would you overhaul the show?
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The ratings for Sunday’s 84th Academy Awards were up slightly from a year ago — more than 39 million people tuned in, compared with 2011’s audience of nearly 38 million. But very few people seemed that excited about the ceremony itself, and the Oscars were seen by fewer people than this year’s Grammys.
Many critics trashed host Billy Crystal, some detractors blamed the soulless acceptance speeches, while a handful of commentators found fault with the movies themselves. Only one best picture nominee, “The Help,” is a legitimate box-office hit, and “The Artist” may turn out to be the second lowest-grossing best picture winner (beating only “The Hurt Locker”) in the last 35 years.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says it enjoys little leeway in overhauling the broadcast. Like a three-hour football game in which the ball is in play only for a dozen minutes, there’s just 30 minutes or so in the Oscar show for anything original — all the other time is taken up by the presentation of the trophies. And the academy consistently has refused to consider moving awards such as sound mixing and art direction into a non-televised ceremony.
Some academy officials believe the show ain’t broke. ‘This is the best show we’ve ever had. Nothing has come close to this,’ the Wall Street Journal quoted Hawk Koch -- a candidate to be the academy’s next president -- as telling Oscar producer Brian Grazer.
If you disagree, check out our poll. Assume you have unlimited power to renovate the Oscars. What would you do to make it more exciting?
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