UPDATED 11:33 EDT / FEBRUARY 28 2011

Real Time Data Can Help the Oscars Win Viewers, Ad Revenue

The Oscars Award ceremony has a very long tradition, but it must also change with current times. Making its way into today’s viewer preferences is just one step in that direction.  This year the presenting duo featured the youngest female presenter in the history of the awards ceremony, Anne Hathaway, probably as a means if addressing the younger segment of the targeted audience. Nowadays, the Oscars must readjust its broadcasting to present trends. During the show cell phones were made use of by the presenter James Franco and notable was Justin Timberlake’s remark that an app is expected to pop up.

ABC tried its best to maximize the audience rates during the big night but did not actually manage to transit smoothly from classic broadcasting media to online broadcasting. Presenter James Franco set up #OscarsRealTime on Twitter and posted real time small vids and photos from backstage. Most times, after the handing in of the award, winners go backstage to discuss with reporters and other winners. ABC transmitted on Oscar.com the hype of the winners that fully enjoy the moment backstage and transmitted on TV the disappointment on the faces of the nominees that did not win.

Apart from the fact that TV and online viewers were treated differently, ABC overshot the advertising contracts. Companies that paid a great deal of money to be advertised during the Oscars were not very happy with online viewers watching movie stars backstage instead of ads.

The Oscars is an example of a brand that is going to have to deal with a lot of real time data if it wants to fully leverage the digital age. For the 2011 awards ceremony, no video after the airing of the event was available neither on Oscar.com, nor on Oscar’s official YouTube channel.

Although ABC did not manage to properly orchestrate social media tools, it partly addressed some of them by creating the Oscar Backstage Pass, an app that offers live camera views from the red carpet, Kodak Theatre and Governor’s Ball for real time imagery of all of the Hollywood elite in their full glory.


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