Audience at awards shows plummets in pandemic

The specialized film and television press these days are struggling to find the adjective that accurately qualifies the horizon that looms over televised awards ceremonies.

"Catastrophic" and "disastrous" are the preferred options.

The collapse of the audience of the Grammy gala, which last Sunday fell 53% compared to the previous year to make its nine million viewers a new all-time low, has triggered all the alarms among the generalist networks.

Not even the presence in the flesh of stars like Taylor Swift, Harry Styles or Dua Lipa managed to capture the attention of a spectator who seems to shy away from the glamor of the red carpet and the genuine emotion of the winners in times of pandemic distress.

A trend of negative records that can be extended to events such as the Goya or the Golden Globes, which this year have registered the least interest in their history.

“The general atmosphere has affected in a clear way.

The spirit is very touched and there are many people who do not have the humor for this, ”says Raúl Díaz, screenwriter for awards such as the Goya and who has served this year as director of the Feroz ceremony.

“It has been complicated because one of the things that characterizes these awards is humor, but the year is not to make blood and we lowered the acidity of the gala.

In the Goya, for example, I missed more comedy ”, he evokes about the gala presented by Antonio Banderas and María Casado, a duo that opted for a common thread based on emotion and solemnity.

Despite the unanimous praise of the critics, the great night of Spanish cinema also left more than a million viewers by the wayside compared to the 2020 edition, marking its worst audience data in 15 years.

Almost all the televised ceremonies in the last year have reaped figures significantly lower than those achieved before the scourge of the health crisis, although the causes transcend the pandemic.

The list includes the Emmy, the Video Music Awards or the Golden Globes, which have taken the worst part with the drop of 64% of their audience.

“The trauma we have experienced is reflected in that it is more difficult for us to have fun, we are more cautious when it comes to celebrating.

On the other hand, knowing that these parties are not going to have the glamor that is expected of them makes them much less attractive ”, says Jordi Sánchez, director of the Information and Communication Sciences Studies at the Open University of Catalonia.

Although the audience on general television is immersed in a progressive and implacable decline due to the appearance of social networks and new content windows, the collapse is such that even NBC itself - which contracted the broadcasting rights of the Globes in 2018 for 50 million euros - already speculates on the possibility of "rethinking the value of the ceremony."

“It is a sociological fact that fiction hooks us today much more than reality.

The rise of platforms such as Netflix, HBO or Movistar, which base most of their content on fictions, has promoted this phenomenon ”, defends Paloma Díaz Soloaga, an expert in Audiovisual Communication and a doctor from the Complutense University.

In his words, the youngest prefer to dispense with the emotion of the live show, a quality that previous generations did value.

"We cheered, we chose our favorite ... But as they can see later in networks they no longer share the emotion that we had of seeing galas like the Oscars."

To date, the different people in charge of the ceremonies have shown their chronic disorientation when it comes to broadening audience profiles.

Don Mischer, legendary producer of the Oscars and Grammys, was sincere a few days ago in

Bloomberg

: "I would like to say that we will find the solution, but I'm not sure there is."

In addition to the lack of diversity and the scarcity of native stars of generation Z, the commitment to auteur cinema among the nominated films (from

Moonlight

to

Nomadland

), or the long duration of the ceremony, seem like insurmountable obstacles for a public used to consuming videos of a few seconds on TikTok or Instagram.

Applications, in addition, in which they encounter daily the arsenal of familiar faces that for decades used to be the best claim of any of these saraos: all the idols in the same room.

Nor does it help, as Raúl Díaz corroborates, the scant media promotion of the candidates or that the galas have opted for hybrid calls between face-to-face and telematics - "we are all a bit fed up with webcams and video calls" -, speeding up the process of transition that the format undergoes.

“The ceremonies are changing and none of us are very clear about where to go.

Each one makes their bet and that ends up disconcerting the public ”, adds the screenwriter, who says he is expectant about the celebration on April 25 of some Oscars that may represent the final lurch or an oasis of hope.

The background is not promising: the 2020 edition has already garnered the worst audience since they were televised.

The main concern for the networks is the viewer himself.

According to

Variety

magazine

, in the last two decades the average age of the public at the Oscars or the Grammys has aged from 40 to 50 years.

Considering that the demographic stratum desired by advertising advertisers is that of adults between 18 and 49 years of age, the low commercial attractiveness can mean the death sentence of the only events historically capable of standing up to sports broadcasts on the grid.

But such an accentuated collapse cannot but be explained from a storm of circumstances that converge in the unusual pandemic context.

The most obvious is the closure of theaters during the last year, which caused a massive withdrawal of titles on the billboard and the consequent ignorance among the public of those works that did premiere and are now competing for a statuette.

“Awards season always comes after watching movies and a big promotion.

The public positions itself, chooses its favorite actor and a sense of competition is generated that this year has been lost because we have not seen them ”, laments Jordi Sánchez.

If there is still a chance to avoid the fatalistic scenario, it only remains to cling to the commonplace and reinvent yourself.

“The solution is to innovate with the formula, which has remained the same for 50 years and offer added value to the viewer.

Make them more immersive, experiential and creative ”, concludes Díaz-Soloaga.

For Sánchez, however, the reflection should be even deeper: “The unions that organize them must first reconsider themselves.

It is incomprehensible that the Grammys continue to give the award for best album today when almost no one consumes them.

It is an important challenge: analyze the nature of the profession, rethink your product and know that, for example, the galas have to incorporate YouTube or Twich ”.

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