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Oscars Will Now Allow Movie Commercials – Good Idea Or Bad Idea?
I love the Oscars. Every year I host an Oscar party and we podcast our way through them now as well. Yeah, there are loads of problems with the Oscars, and often the show itself is boring, but I don’t care. I love the movies and so the night that celebrates the year that was in the movies will always be something I enjoy.
But this morning this story caught my attention. Ever since the Oscars started being televised they’ve had a very good rule. NO MOVIE COMMERCIALS DURING THE OSCARS! Considering how politically charged the Oscars can be sometimes, it’s a good idea to avoid even the appearance that a studio is buying their way into special consideration at the Oscar by buying big dollars worth of ad space. You can’t have a vote where one of the candidates is handing the voters bags of money.
In practical terms, the way the voting system is set up for the Oscars, there really isn’t any danger of it being swayed by a studio buying commercial time on the show… but there is something to be said for keeping even the appearance of impropriety out. Still… you can totally understand why studios would want to advertise their movies during the one time of the year most movie fans are watching the TV.
Well, it has now been announced that the Oscar will allow studios to advertise their films during commercial breaks this year… with some strict restrictions:
– the ads themselves, the spots can’t promote any of the nominated movies
– the ads can’t promote any prequels or sequels to nominated movies
– the ads can’t promote films currently in release. Only movies that are set to open during the last week of April or later allowed.
– each distributor is only allowed ONE commercial spot during the telecast
– the ads can’t have the words “Oscar” or “Academy” in them anywhere
– the ads can only promote ONE movie and not mention others in the ad
As you can probably tell from my opening comments, I’m a little bit torn over this. in reality this really won’t effect anything at all, but the appearance of it seems… I don’t know… just not quite right. I guess the way I feel about it right now is that if I was in charge of The Academy (and you’re all thanking God I’m not) I wouldn’t allow it… but at the same time I don’t really have any complaints about it if that’s what they’re going to do.
So what do you think? Good idea or bad idea to let movie advertise during the Oscars?
well if the movie comes out like next summer..half a year from, now y not?
perfect example of a bad comma placement^^^
sorry
I don’t like it. I would simply steer clear of it if I had any say in the matter. I’m with you on this one John.
Where I live, they play movie trailers during the Oscars all the time and it doesn’t ruin anything. It makes sense to play exclusive movie trailers on a big movie night anyway. It’ll give more people reason to tune in.
I like that they have the rules so it might be ok but in general i’m probably a bit against it
What if the movie is called: Oscar Goes to Police Academy?
Never even noticed they did not show movie trailers during the Oscars… and just as anything gone unnoticed, knowing now is going to bug the crap out of me.
I am a very open capitalist. Forgive me for going off on a tangent…as you shall read…
First of all, why should the Academy have ANY say or control about what is advertised? Shouldn’t the network who paid for the rights to air the Academy Awards get to choose who gets to advertise and what they pay for commercial time?
Part of the problem with this country is that we treat everyone as if they were stupid. (Yes I know there are a lot of stupid people!)
Would the guys from Meet the Spartans make a movie to and market it to take advantage of this removal? Probably? Maybe? Who cares?
I’d fall into the last category, less regulation please. If someone gets hoodwinked into going to a movie called Oscar this or Oscar that, what’s the worst that could happen? They are out at most 12 bucks? Don’t we have better things to do with our time than allowing more controls in our so called “free market”?
I, for one, would love to see the Academy telecast as a sounding board for new movie marketing and concepts rather than limiting one’s approach. Especially, since that’s right before the summer blockbuster kickoff.
Our capitalistic system has been stripped, controlled and taken advantage of so much by Big Business that there really isn’t room anymore for small business. The last bastion of small business (Real Estate) is being stripped as we speak, because Big Business couldn’t keep their paws off of it and made a gigantic mess of it.
Bobafett… you’ve confused me.
Sorry, but I am uncertain as to how exactly your final paragraph has any link to what the rest of your post is stating…
I never would have thought anything of it but now that I have read the post I think I’d rather not see movie ads. I totally see where you’re coming from.
Robert Forest…
My point was that for very little reason, controls are put on business to “protect the consumer”. Note the quotes. The final paragraph is off the point, as I foreshadowed in the first sentence of my post.
If you REALLY think this $700 Billion bailout is going to the little guy, you ar dead wrong. The $700 Billion is going to “buyback” mortgage backed securities that the banks sold to investors based on the Subprime mortgages (some of those returns were 10%+).
Those investors, many of which are foreigners, got a risk free investment at a prime return with absolutely no risk. Granted, if our economy would’ve continued growing the problems would’ve been mostly mitigated. The problem is that MANY or MOST of the subprime mortgages were to people who should’ve never qualified for the home they bought.
I agree that this talk doesn’t belong on TMB. But I warned that in the first sentence.
By the way, I’m not a doom and gloomer. I’m trying to buy about 5 properties this week!
I think the Oscars are trying to be far by “letting” studios run a trailers during the Oscars as an ad spot but at the same time they are making it difficult by place all these rules. I think the Oscars are thinking if we place a lot of rules we can keep the “no movie commercial status” Got to think isn’t this somewhat around Superbowl season also why can’t they just run the ad then…more viewers. bad idea
Do people even watch the Oscars anymore?
Wasn’t it last year where they hit a 22 year low on the raitings?
I dont think this matter that much. Show the trailer it doesnt make alot of difference.
Hey Sahil,
Yes, people still watch the Oscars. 22 year low or not, it was still the second highest rated show of the year behind the Superbowl