ABC Hopes ‘Titanic’ Can Toss a Lifeline to Oscar Ratings

Can the pulling power of a sinking boat raise ratings, even aboard a network that’s spent most of the season barely treading water?

Having dodged (and occasionally hit) icebergs all season, ABC clearly hopes Monday’s Academy Awards will temporarily stem the tide of viewers flowing elsewhere, given that the telecast has at its rudder “Titanic”--now the top-grossing movie of all time.

The Oscars have consistently remained television’s second most-watched annual event, ranking behind only the Super Bowl. Last year the program averaged more than 40 million viewers, with millions more tuning in at least part of the three-hour telecast.

Still, ratings also slipped 10% in 1997 to their lowest level in a decade, the second straight decline after five consecutive years in which audience levels either equaled or surpassed the previous ceremony.

In terms of the outlook for Monday night, two opposing forces appear to be at work, starting with a general ratings decrease for the major networks and especially forABC, which is down 9% this season and ranks third in total viewing.

Pulling in the opposite direction, however, is “Titanic,” responsible for more than 100 million theater admissions since opening in December, according to the box office tracking service Exhibitor Relations Inc.

Even allowing for repeat business, the film has drawn an enormous number of people--in contrast to last year, when lesser-seen independent productions dominated the balloting and “The English Patient” (a more modest success, grossing not quite $65 million by Oscar time) was crowned best picture.

Two other current best picture nominees, “Good Will Hunting” and “As Good as It Gets,” have already topped $100 million in North American box office receipts--a dynamic that would seem to provide more viewers a rooting interest in the outcome.

“This is a banner year for the Academy Awards. You have a lot of big American movies . . . that have sort of great Populist themes,” said Michael Davies, ABC’s executive vice president in charge of specials.

While hesitating to throw out estimates, ABC believes that the show will at least recover audience lost during the last two years, regaining heights reached in the early 1990s.

“We certainly expect it to bounce back to those levels,” said Roger Sverdlik, ABC executive vice president and national sales manager.

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To an extent, the Oscars do seem to possess an inherent appeal that goes beyond a given year’s roster of films.

“It’s event television,” said Bill Croasdale, president of the broadcast division at media buyer Western International Media. “It’s not just [who wins]. It’s everything that goes with it.”

Still, faced with a steady proliferation of viewer choices, even some well-established events have seen their ratings dwindle. The Winter Olympics, for example, recently skidded to a 30-year low, a swoon attributable in part to poor weather and CBS’ much-criticized presentation.

The Oscars also no longer have a monopoly on glitz and glamour, with plenty of star-studded award shows vying for attention, including several movie showcases (the Golden Globes, People’s Choice, Screen Actors Guild and Blockbuster Entertainment awards) since the calendar year began.

“I think [the other awards shows] dilute each other. I don’t think they would ever dilute the Academy Awards,” Davies said. “It’s head and shoulders above all of them.”

The awards might have stood taller, in fact, if “Titanic” star Leonardo DiCaprio were a best actor contender, a nomination that would have surely compelled many young girls to insist upon staying up past their bedtimes. Despite that omission, Croasdale expects the film’s anticipated coronation to inspire more people “to hang around to the end of the show.”

Sources say ABC garnered more than $900,000 for each 30-second commercial, compared to $1.3 million for this year’s Super Bowl, a record that will be eclipsed in May by the “Seinfeld” finale.

Because opportunities to reach such a vast audience have become increasingly rare, ABC hopes to benefit in other ways. The show provides a platform for promoting upcoming programs, and ABC has sought more than ever this year to tap into its prestige, for weeks billing itself in on-air promotion as “the network of the Academy Awards.”

“In the current television environment, it’s hard to generate huge numbers,” said ABC’s Sverdlik, who added that, as a result of that audience fragmentation, the Oscars “stand out even more relative to other prime-time programming.”

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The Oscars will receive sparse competition from other broadcasters. The Fox network (whose studio distributes “Titanic” internationally) will experiment by offering a night of boxing, presented by welterweight champion Oscar De La Hoya. Fox Television President David Hill called the special an attempt to provide an alternative “for guys who don’t want to see how many sequins there are on the winning gown.”

NBC and CBS will counter with reruns but employ a similar strategy by scheduling two shows with strong appeal among men--”Law & Order” and “Walker, Texas Ranger,” respectively--after their comedy blocks.

“Titanic’s” worldwide success could spur interest in the broadcast internationally as well. A record 139 countries--from Algeria to Zimbabwe--have acquired this year’s Oscars, and 90% of them will carry the telecast live.

In the past, time differences have prevented many countries from airing the program live, instead showing a 90-minute version ABC makes available the next day. Some use both, such as the British Broadcasting Corp., which runs the live feed in the wee hours of the morning (with commentary during commercials, since the service doesn’t carry them), then plays the boiled-down presentation later in prime time.

Despite the oft-spoken assertion that the Oscars attract a global audience of “1 billion people,” such figures remain at best an optimistic guess based on the number of countries televising the ceremony. More conservatively, producers estimate at least 250 million people will watch the show.

Of course, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences isn’t alone in making grandiose claims. The nighttime Emmy Awards boast a potential audience of 600 million.

“I don’t think any of us know. Most of the countries don’t have Nielsen [ratings],” conceded Berle Adams, who has overseen international distribution of the Emmys since 1979.

Adams noted that the Oscars remain an easier sell than the Emmys, since not all U.S. television shows achieve wide distribution overseas.

“Everybody sees movies,” he said.