Saving Oscar: DON'T Save the Date!
In part two of my series: Reset the calendar, run precursors off the road
This week is about how to fix the Oscars — and by extension, Hollywood. Yesterday, I made the case for a larger-than-life show. Today, we reset the date. If you have any thoughts on the topic, drop me a line at richard@theankler.com.
Looking at the buckets of Big Changes we need to make to save the Oscars, I’ve started with when the awards are held because if it’s not the easiest change, it’s definitely the simplest one. This is a change that could happen with a wave of the hand, a simple announcement. But the effects should such an announcement be made would wreak a vast amount of (necessary) havoc, certainly bigger than any other single change.
In the media game, as fall turns to winter, we’re all in the business of making end-of-year lists: best movies of 2024, best books, unforgettable moments, most intriguing people, most memorable viral pet videos, 20 words we can’t get out of our heads, and on and on. They fill up newspapers, magazines, websites, Instagram accounts and TV news shows. (I wrote about the problem with these lists last month, but I also can’t resist their siren song, producing the Ankler 100 — the 100 worst moments for the entertainment industry in the year past — and joining Katey Rich for two Prestige Junkie podcasts discussing last year’s best films and performances.)
These lists start posting just after Thanksgiving and soon thereafter, approximately 97 percent of the world’s journalistic resources are devoted to producing end-of-year lists. By mid-December, fatigue starts to set in, and by Christmas, no one wants to hear a word about 2024 or whatever year is ending, ever again.
So imagine, if you will, that you’re a producer for a major midwestern news outlet assigned to make a list of The 24 Best Butter Sculptures of 2024, to run in the first week of December. Close your eyes and picture, somewhere around Dec. 10, your executive producer approaching your desk, and you have the following conversation:
EP: Hey, you. Really looking forward to the Butter Sculpture list. Think that will be ready for tonight’s show?
You: I’m going to need some time.
EP: Some time . . .
You: You know, there are still three weeks left in the year. There’s really no saying what sort of miracles 2024 might still bring us in butter carving.
EP: Doesn’t Mrs. Daniels’ butter cow win every year?
You: It’s the one to beat, but miracles happen!
EP: Miracles . . . Can’t you call over to the County Fair and ask them if you can take a peek at what’s coming?
You: Well, yes, I could advance screen them, but you never know . . .
EP: Okay, so can you have this in for our New Year’s show then? I guess it would be a good slot in the 10 o’clock hour . . .
You: But after all the possibilities come in, I need time to consider them! Plus, I want to see that public-access station’s butter sculpture list that comes out Dec. 29. Its choices often suggest what should be on my list.
EP: So when were you thinking this list would be done?
You: How about mid-March?
[Screeching sound as you, your desk and your belongings are thrown from the office’s window on the 23rd floor.]
There are many very good reasons why the Oscars are held in March — and none of them are nearly adequate to the ridiculousness of the situation. Not sure how much you’ve been following the latest developments in human attention span . . .
