By showing the Oscars, can YouTube bring back Hollywood’s golden age?

With fewer people tuning in to the Academy Awards, letting an web-based platform stream it live and pump out clips to social media might boost its appeal, says James Moore

Did YouTube just save the Oscars? This week, the streaming giant beat more traditional broadcasters to sign a deal for the rights to livestream Tinseltown’s biggest bash from 2029 – and for free, too.

It is a historic moment in many ways, bringing an end to the event’s half-century association with Disney-owned ABC, which has held the broadcast rights since 1976. Academy Awards CEO Bill Kramer said the move would help the event reach a larger, and more international, audience. But it is also yet another example of the streaming-led disruption the TV industry is grappling with.

The annual Oscar ceremony – first televised in 1953, by NBC – enjoyed a small ratings bump last year, but its viewership has been in long-term decline. No less a figure than Donald Trump has in the past made merry with the downturn in viewers, gloating in 2018 about the “lowest rated Oscars in HISTORY”. He blamed this on the problem “we don't have Stars anymore – except your President (just kidding, of course)!”.

Was he really kidding, though? Movie buffs in the UK, for instance, might stay up late to sit through the whole shebang as it happens in Los Angeles. But who really has the time, or inclination, to watch a three-hour festival of self-congratulation? Most people are really only interested in the shiniest baubles – best film, best director, and the acting awards – with a side order of fashion fails and occasional celebrity right-hook.

For YouTube, which only launched 20 years ago, those exclusive rights present an opportunity for it to slice and dice the broadcast into manageable short-form chunks – clips – that will deliver eyeballs, and thus advertising dollars, and help it to push its own premium plan. This is a savvy business decision on the streamer’s part. It is equally a win for Hollywood, not just because of the American movie-industry’s desire – and need – to further globalise its audience at a time when Americans are switching off.

A little over a century after the giant “Hollywoodland” sign went up in the hills outside LA, the motion picture industry has plenty to worry about these days. Paramount’s hostile attempted takeover of Warner Bros will take a studio out off the board if the deal is completed. Jobs will inevitably be lost and (potentially) choice, too. For viewers, at least, Netflix’s competing offer would have been better. There is also the corrosive effect of AI and the decline in cinema generally.

Notwithstanding the wild success of Disney’s Zootropolis 2, studios have found it increasingly hard to tempt people into theatres. The diet of tiresome sequels and franchise films that has been served up is as much on the movie-going public as it is on the studios movie critics like to rail against. Consumers have been shunning new and original content. The studios have thus followed their lead. Tough break for those of us who would welcome a little more creativity.

Ultimately, the future is streamed, and we all know it. But this win for a streamer may be one for movie fans too, if it helps push a few more people through their local cinema’s doors and helps make novel ideas pay a bit better.