Marketing during the Oscars

Matthew Belloni offers the following suggestion (The Hollywood Reporter, 12/20/09)for upping the TV ratings of the Oscar telecast:

Here’s how: Introduce movie trailers to the show.

Think about it. At five strategically timed slow points in the ceremony, a major star could appear to introduce a two-minute clip of never-before-seen footage from an upcoming film. Every major studio, mini-major and specialty division would be invited to enter a lottery for the five slots, the only rule being that the winning studios’ clips — any clip; it can be something from a prestige project or from “Iron Man 2″ — has never been seen before.

It’s a fair idea. I don’t much care for the lottery idea – and he has some negative points about that later in the article – but I do think that a lifting of the ridiculous facade that is the Academy’s ban on movie advertising within the show. That started to be taken away last year but needs to just be dropped as a whole.

Maybe instead of that set a spending limit: Every studio can buy up to two spots during the telecast to use as they see fit. Then let the studios get their publicity departments churning on building the buzz for an exclusive clip from whatever.

If the concern is about the appearance of impropriety – that a studio will be seen as buying an award by purchasing ad time within the telecast – just continue making it a level playing field but raise the level of the playing field.

But all that is useless deck chair rearranging if more substantive changes (remove the dance numbers, have the artists themselves sing their theme songs, etc) aren’t made. As long as there’s the assumption the show will be a big snoozefest for younger viewers they’ll never tune in in the first place.