Bill Kay tells the sad, sad story of Oscar

What was all that about? For weeks beforehand, nothing but Oscar, Oscar, Oscar. Now, it's as if it never happened. The caravan has moved on or, like the floats in the Pasadena Rose Parade, it has been put away in its garage until next January.
OK, this wasn't a vintage Oscar year, whatever the boosters may try to tell us. What's worrying is that the US live TV audience was an all-time low of 32 million in a year when there were no distractions or other excuses apart from the fact that the films were no better than OK.
I think it's more serious than that. For years there has been a disconnect between the people who go to the cinemas - mainly 15 to 25-year-olds - and those who watch TV - mainly over 40s. I suspect that while today's young parents may not be able to get to the cinema as often as they did, they just don't buy the Oscars ballyhoo. And that disconnect is growing into a secular generational gap that TV advertisers can no longer ignore.
Ignore? Just compare the ads during the Oscars with those during Superbowl three weeks earlier, which raked in a record 97.5 million viewers, third successive year of over 90 million. And American Idol can reckon on more than 70 million for its finale.
These are today's big players. The Oscars had to make do with Superbowl hand-me-down ads, like the Godfather-inspired car grille in the bed.
The fact is that the kids want to get out of the house and be with their pals, and a cinema is as good a place as any, especially if they are watching on a new movie's first weekend, and even more so if that movie is hot. Sitting at home for hour after house with parents, grandparents and dysfunctional Aunt Jemimah just doesn't compete. It's no good that some of their heroes will be getting awards: they won't be playing their favourite characters acting out enthralling drama. Instead they'll be dehumanised in tuxedo or designer dress, reading autocues or waving the statuette and saying for the umpteenth time how this is for the whole team, not just for them - not in the least bit convincingly. There will be the odd clip of movies that were hot six months ago but are therefore already so last year that they might as well be coated in aspic. Even the MC, Jon Stewart, is dad's age for most filmgoers - and that's without that permanent smug grin that is crying out to be swatted with a paving stone.
So it's a night out for the industry, another freebie in a year of freebies for the Hollywood crowd and their hangers-on. But the formula is tired, dating back at best to Bob Hope and the Rat Pack.
I could say it needs freshening up, maybe have Johnny Depp or Matt Damon present the show in a year when they are not nominated (book yourself in for the Lifetime Achievement Award in about 2040, Johnny), but I admit there are no easy fixes that would not just be the old formula refried. It has got to be more radical than that.
Once the Academy of Motion Pictures had been formed, it was natural to have an annual prize-giving, and it used to be a handy way to give the best pictures another publicity push. That doesn't work any more, in the sense that it doesn't boost sales, another sign that the filmgoing and Oscar-watching audiences are separate entities.
Every industry in pretty well every country has annual awards. Everyone eventually craves recognition, especially once they have been in a career for 20 years or more and the mid-life crisis is kicking in. It is a way of saying that making films, writing books or newspaper stories or even being the best share tipster means more than selling cans of beans - and you can bet the beanmakers have their own awards bash.
Just as bean-eaters rarely attend the annual beanfeast, so there is no reason why filmgoers should pay any attention to the Oscars. The bizarre difference is that film-makers pretend that their orgy of self-congratulation is the most glamorous on the planet, which is why Elton John admitted he spent the next two weeks walking around with a stupid grin on his face after he was Oscarred. Maybe the beanmaker of the year does too, but I doubt it.
In the end, like beanmaking, showbiz is a business and it is one that hates to be snubbed. If the TV audience keeps shrinking there will come a time when more and more of the stars find excuses not to attend, just as they did with the Hollywood Christmas Parade which is being so desperately revived this year. Certainly, if the studios tell them to attend, or going to the Oscars is inserted in their contract when they sign to appear in a film, they will attend. But it will become more and more obvious that that is what is going on: there are no secrets in Hollywood. And the event will gradually fall into disrepair, a bit like Charlie Chaplin's braces. Time to move on, guys.
In the LA Times of February 27, Patrick Goldstein constructs an elaborate argument for reforming the Oscars, with internet coverage, behind-the-scenes glimpses, segments from not-the-Oscars prize-giving and a whole lot of other stuff that must have sounded fine off the top of Goldstein's head but is never going to happen.
In the end this is a television decision. Without the TV audience there is no show, and the TV stations will bid for it as long as there is enough audience to sell to advertisers. Once that stops happening it's game over and the Oscars becomes just another industry bash like a lot of the Academy's other events. We may see a desperate attempt at a facelift, although that will meet stern resistance within the Academy's deeply conservative ranks.
The only glimmer of light is that the Academy depends financially on the Oscars. If the TV check starts shrinking, then the Academy governors might have to reconsider. By then, though, it will probably be too late.