Oscars still top draw for advertisers despite fickle ratings

The number of people who watched Sunday's Oscars was down and the critics were less than impressed, but Hollywood's biggest night is still a top draw for television advertisers.

This year's telecast - which producers believed could build off 2014's big audience of 43.7 million - attracted its lowest audience in six years and the oldest demographic ever with a median age of 53.

Despite a 15 percent drop in viewership to 37.3 million, however, it is still worth the price tag for advertisers and broadcaster ABC, analysts said.

"It's definitely a showcase place to be, and they (ABC) never have a problem selling it out year to year," said Steve Kalb, a director at ad agency Mullen.

This year's telecast hosted by actor Neil Patrick Harris commanded $1.9 million for 30 seconds of advertising time, up from last year's $1.76 million, the highest among awards shows.

Last year's Ellen DeGeneres-hosted ceremony reaped $95 million in ad revenue, according to Kantar Media. This year's figure is not yet available.

ABC pays $75 million annually to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for TV broadcast rights, said Brad Adgate, the research director at Horizon Media. The contract with Walt Disney Co's ABC and the Academy runs through 2020.

However, the search for a way to attract the younger viewers that advertisers prize most leads many to believe the Academy might have to make long-term changes to the ceremony.

Criticism this year focused on lack of diversity among acting nominees, clunky jokes and the perennial complaint that it is too long. The show clocked in at three hours and 40 minutes and went past midnight on the East Coast.

It also hurt that it was a lackluster year at the box office, and only one film that Americans went to see in droves, "American Sniper," was in the running for best picture.

"It's up to the Academy to change it," Adgate said. "It's up to them to make this awards show more compelling."

The Academy selects the show's producers and host, and its 6,100 members choose winners on merit. The biggest recent change was expanding the best picture nominees from five to up to 10 for the 2010 ceremony in an effort to boost interest.

"As we do each year, the Academy will meet in the coming months to evaluate not only the telecast but also our awards season in its entirety," an Academy spokesperson said in a statement.

ABC declined comment.

Although the Academy might be taking a long view on how to keep the show relevant in a world where TV viewership is on the decline, advertisers are not likely to complain. They like the Oscars reach, prestige and loyal viewers, particularly among women, said Kalb.

One-fifth of Oscar viewers this year said ads increased their likelihood to purchase a product, three times greater than the Super Bowl's audience, according Extreme Reach, a distributor of video advertising.

"It's sort of the Super Bowl for women," Kalb added.

(Editing by Mary Milliken and Andre Grenon)

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'Birdman' soars to Oscar heights on best picture win

LOS ANGELES -- The dark comedy "Birdman" held up a mirror to Hollywood and its struggling actors and received in return the film industry's highest recognition on Sunday, the Academy Award for best picture.

Director Alejandro G. Inarritu's story of a washed-up, former superhero actor attempting an improbable comeback on Broadway won four Oscars, including best director, the second consecutive win in that category for a Mexican filmmaker.

Inarritu thanked the star-studded audience for seeing his "crazy film."

The reward for the satire hews to an Academy tradition of awarding films that honor the entertainment industry, such as "Argo" and "The Artist" in recent years.

Eddie Redmayne won best actor with his painstaking portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything," robbing "Birdman" lead and former superhero actor Michael Keaton of a big comeback moment.

Each of the eight best picture nominees went home with at least one award, but it was a disappointing night for "Boyhood," Richard Linklater's unprecedented endeavor to depict the simple story of a boy growing up over 12 years, all with the same actors. It won one Oscar for its six nods.

Wes Anderson's colorful caper, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" proved popular among the 6,100 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who vote for the Oscars, winning four awards on its nine nominations.

"Whiplash," the independent film about an aspiring jazz drummer and his tough mentor from young director Damien Chazelle, won three Oscars.

It was a night in which the controversy over the lack of diversity among this year's nominees was front and center. First-time host Neil Patrick Harris opened the telecast with a quip: "Tonight we honor Hollywood's best and whitest, I mean brightest."

But the race theme resonated in a more serious way too, when Common and John Legend got a standing ovation and made many in the audience cry with their performance of "Glory" from the 1960s civil rights drama "Selma."

It won best song, delivering the sole victory to "Selma," the film at the center of the diversity debate, sparked by the exclusion of ethnic minority actors from the four acting categories. The nominations sparked the Twitter hashtag "#OscarsSoWhite.

"'Selma' is now, because the struggle for justice is right now," said Legend in the aftermath of recent racially charged protests in America.

Moore, Arquette prevail

The Academy rewarded heavy favorites and veterans with their first Oscars in the three other acting races.

Five-time nominee Julianne Moore won best actress for her portrayal of a woman suffering from early onset Alzheimer's in "Still Alice."

Patricia Arquette won best supporting actress for her role as a struggling single mother in "Boyhood," while J.K. Simmons won the best supporting actor as a monstrous music teacher in "Whiplash."

For the biggest televised event outside the sports world, the Academy aimed to attract young viewers who may not care much about the films but who could tune in for the musical acts.

A bridge between the young and old, pop diva Lady Gaga received a standing ovation for her medley of tunes from "The Sound of Music" before introducing that film's star, Julie Andrews.

Poland's "Ida" clinched best foreign-language film and director Pawel Pawlikowski pushed the 45-second acceptance speech boundary to thank "my Polish friends who are in front of the TV, the crew who were in the trenches with us and who are totally drunk now, and you were fantastic."

Best documentary went to "Citizenfour," director Laura Poitras' feature about National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, the former government contractor who detailed the secret mass surveillance programs.

"The subject of 'Citizenfour,' Edward Snowden, could not be here for some treason," joked Harris.

Full list of winners

Following is a list of winners in leading categories.

BEST PICTURE
"Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)"

BEST ACTOR
Eddie Redmayne, "The Theory of Everything"

BEST ACTRESS
Julianne Moore, "Still Alice"

BEST DIRECTOR
Alejandro G. Inarritu, "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of
Ignorance)"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
J.K. Simmons, "Whiplash"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Patricia Arquette, "Boyhood"

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Graham Moore, "The Imitation Game"

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Alejandro G. Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris
Jr., Armando Bo, "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of
Ignorance)"

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
"Ida" (Poland)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
"Big Hero 6"

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
"CitizenFour"

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
"Glory," from "Selma"

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Alexandre Desplat, "The Grand Budapest Hotel"

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Milena Canonero, "The Grand Budapest Hotel"

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Emmanuel Lubezki, "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of
Ignorance)"

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Frances Hannon, Mark Coulier, "The Grand Budapest Hotel"

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
"Interstellar"

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Lady Gaga in moving 'Sound of Music' Oscars tribute

HOLLYWOOD -- The Academy Awards hailed the 50th anniversary of its all-time greatest musical Sunday, recruiting Lady Gaga to gracefully sing a medley of memorable tunes from "The Sound of Music."

Starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, the cinematic tale of the musical von Trapp family in Austria and their mischievous governess is a Hollywood classic.

In contrast to her own flamboyant concerts, Lady Gaga was all about the voice as she sang highlights from the beloved 1965 movie to the accompaniment of a string combo and a choir.



She then gave way to Andrews, 79, to announce the winner of the Oscar for best original score -- Alexandre Desplat, for "The Grand Budapest Hotel."

"Dear Lady Gaga, thank you for that wonderful tribute. Oh my god, it really warmed my heart," said the British-born thespian.

Looking back at the making of "The Sound of Music," Andrews said it was "really hard to believe" that a half-century had passed. "I blinked, and suddenly here I am," she said.

Those involved in making the picture, she said, "all really felt blessed to have been a part of it. As for me, how lucky can a girl get?"

"It's a very special tribute performance," Gaga -- wearing a white Azzedine Alaia gown -- told ABC television earlier Sunday.

"I really put my heart into preparing for it," said the 28-year-old singer-songwriter.

"The Sound of Music" collected five Oscars in 1965, including best picture and best director.

Andrews was nominated for best actress, an honor she won the year before for "Mary Poppins," only to lose to Julie Christie in "Darling."

Directed by Robert Wise, "The Sound of Music" brought to the silver screen the eponymous 1959 hit Broadway musical.

Several of its Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein songs -- like "Edelweiss," "My Favorite Things," "Do-Re-Mi" and the title track -- are enduring classics.

Based on Maria von Trapp's published memoirs, the film -- largely fictionalized, as Wise duly warned the family in advance -- remains the highest grossing musical of all time.

The von Trapps left Austria soon after its annexation by Nazi Germany, eventually settling in the US state of Vermont, where they opened an Alpine resort that remains in family hands.

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Neil Patrick Harris salutes movies, pokes Oscars on race

LOS ANGELES -- First-time Oscars host Neil Patrick Harris opened Hollywood's biggest night of the year on Sunday with a fleeting but pointed jibe at the homogenous field of Academy Award nominees, before launching into a spirited musical salute to the magic of movies.

"Tonight we honor Hollywood's best and whitest, sorry, brightest," Harris enthusiastically dead-panned to hearty laughter that seemed to break the usual pre-show jitters among the movie royalty packing the auditorium of the Dolby Theater.

The opening joke was a reference to the criticism Oscar voters faced this year for failing to nominate a single performer of color in any of the acting categories for the first time in many years.

Without wasting another moment, Harris, 41, segued into an opening song-and-dance tribute to the movies, showing off his chops as a live comedy-musical performer, and a conscious effort of Oscar producers to connect with tech-savvy younger television viewers.

"Check out the glamor, and glitter/people tweeting on the twitter, and no one's drunk and bitter yet/because no one has lost," he sang.

Before the number and the on-screen explosion of computer-graphic imagery of film classics had ended, Harris was joined by actress Anna Kendrick, a star of last year's fairy-tale film musical "Into the Woods," and then by Jack Black, leaping onto stage from the audience to play an angry contrarian before being driven away again by Kendrick's hurled shoe.

The performance ended with wild applause, as Harris notes a great paradox of the Oscar -- that few of the most honored movies at the Academy Awards are blockbuster successes.

One notable exception this year, as Harris pointed out, was "American Sniper," which alone grossed at least half of the box office earned by the seven other best picture nominees combined.

"To put that into perspective, everybody on this side of the aisle is the seven other nominees, and 'American Sniper' is Oprah," he said, adding as the camera cut to a perplexed Oprah Winfrey, "Because you're rich."

In one of his zanier escapades, and an homage to a memorable scene from Oscar front-runner "Birdman," Harris ventured from backstage to the show's main stage, followed by a camera, dressed only in his underpants, shoes and socks to introduce presenters of the sound-mixing award, with the words: "Acting is a noble profession."

Harris, who previously has won three Emmys for hosting Broadway's Tony Awards, was recruited by Oscar producers as a hoped-for bridge between older movie fans and younger viewers that the Academy Awards have been desperate to attract in greater numbers.

Harris has a young following himself as a star of the hit CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother."

One obvious sign of the outreach to younger viewers came in a musical performance of the pop duo Tegan and Sara teaming up with former "Saturday Night Live" star Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island trio for a rendering of the kids favorite "Everything Is Awesome."

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Oscars promise suspense and maybe some surprises

Hollywood's awards season reaches its apogee on Sunday at the 87th Academy Awards, where "Birdman" and "Boyhood" are locked in a battle for best picture and veteran actors are likely to grasp their first golden Oscar statuettes.

The film industry's biggest night will serve up its share of suspense as three top honors - best picture, best director and best actor - are proving hard to predict, even for the most seasoned experts.

But those nail-biters will come at the tail end of the three-hour ABC telecast from Hollywood's Dolby Theater, where first-time host Neil Patrick Harris will guide a show heavy on humor, magic and music from big names like Lady Gaga.

Hours before Hollywood's A-list celebrities were due to walk the famous red carpet, a plastic tent remained in place for possible rain showers.

News crews from around the world, in tuxedos and gowns, set up for a telecast that will be seen by hundreds of millions of people in 225 countries and territories.

Meryl Streep will be vying for an Oscar for a record 19th time, in the best supporting actress category. But most, including several of the favorites, are first-time contenders.

"It's been a long journey up to here," said Pawel Pawlikowski, director of "Ida," Poland's nominee for best foreign-language film. "Of course, it would be nice to win as well, but I'm not going to collapse if we don't."

In a sign of how the Oscars might be split, the Film Independent Spirit Awards for small-budget movies on Saturday crowned Alejandro G. Inarritu's show business satire "Birdman" as best feature and its star Michael Keaton took best male lead. Richard Linklater won best director for his coming-of-age tale "Boyhood," made over 12 years with the same actors.

While both Linklater and Inarritu have been nominated for Oscars before, they have never won.

Together, "Birdman" and "Boyhood" have made $62 million at the North American box office, compared to $310 million for the most commercially successful of the eight best picture nominees, Iraq war drama "American Sniper" from director Clint Eastwood.

CRITICISM OF ACADEMY

The dearth of blockbuster movies at this year's Oscars could diminish the number of people who tune in to watch the biggest non-sports televised event in the United States.

Last year with host Ellen DeGeneres and her selfie that broke Twitter, the Oscars pulled in its largest audience in 14 years of 43.7 million viewers.

Forty percent of American adults plan to tune in to the awards telecast, according to the annual Reuters/Ipsos Oscars poll. Forty-five percent said they most enjoy seeing who wins.

The Oscars are determined by 6,100 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a body that has taken its knocks this year for nominating no actors of color in the acting races.

Civil rights groups have called a boycott of the Oscars to protest the lack of diversity and will demonstrate before the ceremony.

But experts believe the Academy, where actors are the largest voting bloc, will reward performers with long careers with their first Oscars.

Eddie Redmayne is front-runner for best actor for his portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything." But there might be an upset from Keaton, whose "Birdman" role had him working in very long takes.

"I had no idea how precise we had to be, and how difficult, but you know there's no other way to do it, it's the only way you could make this movie," Keaton said after winning his Spirit Award Saturday.

Julianne Moore, nominated five times in her career, should win her first best actress for her role as a woman with early onset Alzheimer's in "Still Alice."

(Additional reporting by Jane Ross; Editing by Sandra Maler and Frances Kerry)

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Hollywood prepares for its Oscars close-up

LOS ANGELES -- Hollywood is preparing for its Oscars close-up Sunday, as Tinseltown's annual awards season comes to its climax with two films expected to face off for the top prize.

Dark comedy "Birdman" is vying with coming-of-age drama "Boyhood" for best picture at the Oscars, although a late surge by "American Sniper" could yet cause an upset.

Julianne Moore, Patricia Arquette and Britain's Eddie Redmayne are among those widely tipped to take home acting prizes during the show, hosted by song-and-dance man Neil Patrick Harris.

On the eve of the Oscars, "Birdman" got a new boost Saturday, taking best film at the Independent Spirit awards as well as best actor for Michael Keaton, while "Boyhood" took best director for Richard Linklater.

But the race for the biggest prize of the night Sunday remains too close to call, with less than 24 hours to go.

"Birdman," a fanciful yet dark tale of a washed-up superhero actor battling to revive his career on Broadway, has swept a string of prizes ahead of the Oscars including top prizes from the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America.

But Linklater's "Boyhood" -- which was made over the course of 12 years with the same actors aging with their characters -- scooped up the biggest awards at last month's Golden Globes, as well as Britain's BAFTAs.

Some have even suggested that Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper" could sneak up on the inside as a dark horse, boosted by the film's box office success as the highest-grossing war movie of all time.

Ballots cast

When nominations were announced last month, "Birdman" shared the most nods with Wes Anderson's stylish crime caper "The Grand Budapest Hotel," at nine each, followed by World War II thriller "The Imitation Game" with eight. "Boyhood" followed with six.

That fired the starting gun on the frenzied final weeks of frantic schmoozing and self-publicizing that defines Hollywood's awards season, which gains momentum until the star-studded Oscars night.

While the best picture race is on a knife-edge, several of the other key categories are seen as much easier to predict.

Veteran star Moore is almost universally expected to win best actress for playing a linguistics professor suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's Disease in "Still Alice."

Arquette is the favorite for best supporting actress as the single mother raising two kids in "Boyhood," while J.K. Simmons is widely expected to win best supporting actor honors for jazz drama "Whiplash."

The best actor race is still seen as up for grabs -- a two-man contest between Redmayne -- as astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything" -- and "Birdman" star Michael Keaton.

Best picture/director split?
For best director, the frontrunners are Linklater and Mexico's Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the creative force behind "Birdman."

This has led to speculation that the best picture and best director prizes could be shared, as they were last year when Mexican Alfonso Cuaron won best director for "Gravity," while the best picture Oscar went to "12 Years A Slave."

A star-studded cast of presenters will hand out the prizes at Sunday's show, including Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson, Nicole Kidman, Eddie Murphy, Liam Neeson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Meryl Streep and Oprah Winfrey.

The show, which starts at 5:30 p.m. (Monday morning in Manila), will be preceded by the traditional red carpet parade, featuring a bevy of stars kitted out in their formal finest.

One unwelcome guest could be rain -- forecasts say there is a 60 percent chance of what is a rare LA phenomenon. Last year, a last-minute freak storm forced organizers to scramble to make sure it didn't rain on the party.

They will be hoping the clouds hold off for as long as possible.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

How Oscars number-crunchers keep winners secret

LOS ANGELES, United States - By day, they are accountants with global consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers. But from Friday, for two days only, they become keepers of one of the most closely-guarded secrets in the world.

Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz will be the only people who know the winners of the coveted golden Oscar statuettes, cinema's most prestigious prizes.

They are the people who tally up the votes of the 6,100-odd members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), who choose the Oscar winners.

"We print everything" for fear of possible leaks or online hacking, Cullinan told AFP, explaining how the voting process has been revolutionized over the last few years.

"For 84 years, (it) was only done by paper. Over the last three years, they have allowed members to vote electronically, with a password. An increasing number, the majority, now vote electronically," he said.

The pair have a team of five or six people to help. But they make absolutely sure that no single person counts all the votes in a category, to ensure nobody but them knows any of the winners, said Ruiz.

There are 24 categories, and over 6,000 votes to be counted by hand. That's a lot of counting. The vote ended Tuesday evening. They hope to have the results collated by Friday evening, said Cullinan.

- Results tied six times -

Most categories -- best actor, actress, best song, et cetera -- are decided simply by counting the votes and seeing who gets the most.

On six occasions over the decades, there has been a tie, in which case two statuettes are handed out. The last time that happened was in 2013, for best sound editing.

For best picture, it is more complicated: the winner has to get 50 percent of votes plus one.

To achieve this, voters have to rank their favorites from the eight nominated movies. The first-choice votes are then counted, and if none gets 50 percent, then the film with the least votes is dropped and its votes redistributed to the other seven, based on the second choice.

The process continues until one film gets the crucial amount, the idea being that the winning movie enjoys a consensus of support, rather than say just getting 20 percent but beating the others.

Security is, needless to say, a key concern.

Both Cullinan and Ruiz each get a set of 24 envelopes with category names pre-printed, together with 24 cards. But they fill in the winning names by hand before sealing them.

As a double fail-safe, each of them memorizes the category winners by heart, just in case. Nobody apart from the two of them knows the results.

From the moment that the results are finalized, and a set of envelopes is placed in each of two briefcases, both of them are escorted by armed guards until the start of the ceremony Sunday evening.

They also split up, in case one of them is unable for some reason to get to the Dolby Theatre in time when the curtain goes up at 5:30 pm (0130 GMT Monday).

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com