And the Oscar for least likely to end up with the TV rights to the Academy Awards goes to … YouTube?
Well, it’s a possibility, as a Bloomberg report this week indicates the Alphabet-owned video mega-hub kicked the tires on that rights package, which is currently held by Disney/ABC and valued at upwards of $100 million per year.
Chump change for Alphabet, but does this mean YouTube could emerge as a legit contender to start exclusively broadcasting the Academy Awards beyond the 2028 ceremony — after ABC has aired the show for the past 50 years?
Don’t bet on it.
Let’s start with the acknowledgment that the Oscar telecast is a rapidly declining asset with an older-skewing audience. Ultimately, it’s on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to reinvent the glitzy proceedings to regain relevancy — and YouTube is not the place to do that.
Sure, the platform could make MrBeast the host, but unless movies starring him and other creator-economy creatures were among the nominees, it’s a total brand disconnect.
Quite simply, why a company that isn’t itself directly in the movie business would want the Oscars more than a company in that business just doesn’t make sense. And from all indications, it seems highly unlikely that YouTube wants to enter the movie business.
YouTube may have inquired about the price tag on the rights to the Oscars, but simply posing that question to the Academy doesn’t necessarily add up to genuine interest. Knowing what the cost is, though, could have strategic value for YouTube, which like any self-respecting streamer, is making live events an increasingly important part of its programming portfolio. Having that $100 million in mind helps YouTube benchmark the sticker price on a range of other events.
Of course, the Academy has every incentive to float to Bloomberg word of YouTube’s query as a negotiation tactic. Even the mere whiff of another potential bidder with deep pockets puts pressure on the real bidders to pull every penny out from under the couch cushions and tack it onto their own Oscar offers.
Which may amount to something of a tell regarding the state of the Academy’s leverage in such talks. If a YouTube tire-kick has to be dressed up as a potential offer to signal to bidders the circling of another bidder, could it be a sign that the Academy is not happy with the counterbids going up against Disney? Is it possible there are no counterbidders?
That’s doubtful, because as little sense as I think it makes for YouTube to take the Oscar rights, the move would make all the sense in the world for YouTube’s archrival: Netflix. The Oscars would be exactly the kind of property co-CEO Ted Sarandos would prize, particularly because Netflix, unlike YouTube, is in the movie business and incredibly aggressive about its titles being in the running for statues.
Getting the Oscar rights would represent the ultimate in disrupting Hollywood’s status quo, which Sarandos has long proved he can do masterfully. Shocking as this might sound, it would not surprise me in the least if Netflix overpays simply to steal the Oscars from Disney.
Now just what number would constitute overpaying is an interesting question to ponder. One might presume even matching the existing $100 million mark is an overpay. After all, the Academy Awards has lost half its audience over the past decade. Wouldn’t that mean the telecast is worth half that, especially when some might be factoring in the terminal value of a property that even the biggest Oscar optimists among us would have to concede is in secular ratings decline?
Don’t be surprised when the Oscars still gets more than $100 million a year. First, all it takes is one aggressive contender to inflate the ceremony’s actual value. Second, welcome to the topsy-turvy economics of TV, where just about anything that isn’t the NFL is also seeing its audience dip, though maybe not as precipitously as the Oscars.
Nevertheless, a diminished Oscars is more valuable than ever in a world in which a live event that once regularly commanded one of the biggest audiences on the TV calendar can still deliver an audience of some scale amid a waning sea of properties capable of doing the same.
You also have to factor in the Oscars’ cultural cache, which, again, has cooled. But in today’s hyperfragmented media sphere, anything that launches enough memes on social media and brings together varied demographics can still be considered a capital-E event.
Not too many of those are still around, and there’s a base of advertisers Disney would have to beat off with a stick that aren’t going anywhere, so these rights are still worth something even if the value isn’t what it used to be.
Let’s close with a suggestion of a company that should be bidding for the rights: Apple. Consider that the Academy Awards is just the kind of upper-crust artsy brand that precisely aligns with how Apple positions itself, and it, too, is a competitor in the yearly Oscar races.
So if we wind up seeing Disney vs. Netflix vs. Apple bidding against one another … now that’s a buzzy Oscar race.
