Oscar Commercials Sold Out at ABC Despite Ratings Outlook

Oscar Commercials Sold Out at ABC Despite Ratings Outlook

ABC’s Oscar telecast may not draw as many viewers as it has in the past, but it will still air a full suite of commercials.

The network has sold out all of its available advertising inventory for the annual awards event, Jerry Daniello, senior vice president, entertainment brand solutions, for Disney Advertising Sales, said in an interview. The company finalized its sales earlier this week, he said. ABC’s broadcast of the 2020 Oscars generated approximately $129 million, according to ad-spending tracker Kantar, while the network’s red carpet pre-show attracted around $21 million.

Continued demand for the program shows that Madison Avenue remains interested in TV’s top draws, even as viewership around them changes. More consumers are using streaming-video hubs to get their favorite programs, but events like the Oscars, Grammys and Super Bowl continue to lure the mass audience that advertisers still crave. Last year’s Oscar broadcast lured an average of 23.6 million viewers — a new low, but still more than most of the medium’s primetime dramas and comedies.

With those dynamics at play, coronavirus created new hurdles. “One of the challenges was just what was the show going to look like this year,” said Daniello. “We really rolled our sleeves up.”

Most awards programs have steadily lost viewership over the years, but the coronavirus pandemic has crimped one of their most appealing elements: the chance to see celebrities, live and part of a larger assemblage. A decision to bump the Oscar telecast from its usual February roost to April helped the sales process, Daniello said. “That gave more time for clients to work on their creative and gave them more time to show up the way they wanted to show up,” he said. His team stayed in close contact with this year’s producers, which include Steven Soderbergh, Stacey Sher and Jesse Collins, and once they committed to having some sort of live gathering on the telecast, he said, “that’s when things started bubbling up.”

Google, General Motors, Rolex and Verizon will be among the show’s top sponsors. Other advertisers will include AARP, Accenture, Adidas International, Airbnb, Apartments.com, Apple, Corona, Disney Plus, Eli Lilly, Expedia, FreshPet, FX, Grey Goose, GSK, Honda, Kellogg, Keurig, Mars, Procter & Gamble, Power to the Patient, Searchlight, Starbucks, Subway, Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros.

ABC has been seeking around $2 million for a 30-second ad slot, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Disney worked with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to find new ways to weave advertisers into the extravaganza. Google, for example, will sponsor not only access to closed-captioning for viewers who are hearing impaired, but audio descriptions for the live telecast for viewers who are blind or visually impaired. During the show, Google will run an ad that features the story of Google employee Tony Lee, a child of deaf parents who uses the company’s products like Live Transcribe, Captions in Google Meet and Live Caption to communicate with family. Viewers will be made aware of the options via messages that appear at certain points during the broadcast on the bottom of the screen, Daniello said.

“Google is committed to making the world a more accessible place by working to ensure disabled people are represented in the work we do, the stories we tell and the products we build,” KR Liu, Google’s head of brand accessibility, said in a statement. “We are excited to do our part in making this year’s Oscars even more accessible by helping to make both audio descriptions and captions available.”

Verizon will also use the Oscar broadcast to make fans aware of extras. The company has set up “5G portals” that will let viewers see the action taking place backstage at the event, including celebrities talking to the press and a station where winners can have their name engraved on their statue.

Other advertisers will use the event to draw attention to new ventures. Travel-planning site Expedia will launch a new commercial aimed at getting people ready to travel again as the pandemic subsides. General Motors’ Cadillac will highlight its Lyriq, its first electric crossover vehicle.

Disney used the Oscars to target local advertising as well, luring Mercedes-Benz, Swarovski, Resorts World, Spectrum and Virgin Hotels, among others, to a stream of the event available to Hulu subscribers who use its live service.

Oscars 2021: ‘Nomadland’ wins best picture at the 93rd Academy Awards

A view of the red carpet during the 93rd Annual Academy Awards at Union Station on April 25, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.

The 93rd annual Academy Awards made history before the first award was even handed out.

After years of criticism for a lack of diversity, this year’s slate of nominees contained some notable firsts. It was the first time an all-Black producing team was nominated for best picture, the first time two actors of Asian descent received a nod for best actor and the first year that two women were nominated for best director. When the winners were revealed, it reflected this spirit of inclusion.

Chloe Zhao took home the best directing trophy, becoming the second woman to claim the title. Her film, “Nomadland,” also snagged the top prize of the night, best picture.

However, in a strange balk of tradition, the award was not presented last. Instead it was handed out before the best actress and best actor awards. It is unclear why the Academy made this change.

Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson, two-thirds of the hairstyling and makeup team behind “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” also made history on Sunday. The pair are the first Black women to receive a nomination for best makeup and hairstyling and now, the first to win.

“Soul,” which took home the best animated feature award, is also Pixar’s first film to feature a Black character in the lead.

Yuh-Jung Youn was the first Korean performer to win in one of the four acting categories. Youn won the best supporting actress prize for her work in Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari.”

Weekend Round-Up Cafe Sounds, Golf Escapes, And Amazing Words

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I am not Jack Forster. I don’t even come within a light year of being able to understand this story, but that almost doesn’t matter. You don’t need to understand it to really appreciate it. After decades of research, physicists at Fermilab have their best evidence yet that, “a tiny subatomic particle seems to be disobeying the known laws of physics.” The laws of physics have, for so long, seemed so immutable as to be taken almost for granted. Smart people – some of the smartest who ever lived – looked at the world and jotted down the rules of existence as they understood them, and people like me just took it all as fact without so much as a second thought. But what if they were wrong? What if we haven’t yet been able to see the full picture? Thankfully, curious minds have been testing those theories for years, and now, they’re one step closer to writing their own names into our shared history. Think about how much scientific thought we’ve achieved in the last century. Discoveries like this one demonstrate just how far we’ve come, and remind us how far we still have to go.

– Dakota Gardner, Managing Editor