Posted on 12/17/2025 8:20:07 PM PST by Red Badger
In a reflection of Hollywood’s ongoing decline, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced the Academy Awards will depart from network TV and move to streaming on YouTube beginning in 2029.
The ceremony will continue on ABC through 2028, the 100th Anniversary of the Oscars.
Ratings for the show have been on a steady downward decline for years for reasons that seem obvious to everyone except people in Hollywood.
America stopped paying attention because people don’t want to be lectured about politics from rich liberals who live in a bubble.
Ratings for the once ‘must-watch tv’ have continued to decline in recent years, including record lows in 2021, 2022, and 2023.
AP reports:
But starting in 2029, YouTube will retain global rights to streaming the Oscars through 2033. YouTube will effectively be the home to all things Oscars, including red-carpet coverage, the Governors Awards and the Oscar nominations announcement.
“We are thrilled to enter into a multifaceted global partnership with YouTube to be the future home of the Oscars and our year-round Academy programming,” said academy chief executive Bill Kramer and academy president Lynette Howell Taylor.
“The Academy is an international organization, and this partnership will allow us to expand access to the work of the Academy to the largest worldwide audience possible — which will be beneficial for our Academy members and the film community.”
Over the years, the ceremony has become an opportunity for out-of-touch stars to signal their woke beliefs and attack Donald Trump and his supporters.
New diversity rules were imposed by the Oscars several years ago, which stipulate that to be eligible for the “Best Picture” award, films must meet two of four specified diversity benchmarks.
Fresh from her Oscar win for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Everything Everywhere All at Once, Jamie Lee Curtis ensured that woke politics were front and center by tearfully announcing that she had given her Oscar statue they/them pronouns in support of her trans daughter, Ruby.
In his speech, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” co-director Daniel Scheinert thanked his parents for letting him dress in drag as a child as the crowd roared their approval.
In 2024, host Jimmy Kimmel went on a Trump Derangement-fueled rant.
Haven’t watched them in years - as kids we’d fill out the page in the newspaper and predict the winners. It was a huge event we looked forward to.
But then I haven’t been in a movie theater since 2019. Hasn’t been a single thing I’ve been interested in seeing in a theater - that couldn’t wait for it to stream a couple of weeks later...
Streaming is rapidly destroying any possibity of a movie, even a great one, to have much cultural impact. Movies in theaters are in the public arena. Most of us live within range of theaters, and probably several multiplexes within range — although as theaters continue to get thinned out and urban congestion gets worse, the schlep factor increases.
All of which suits the streamers just fine. They are in the subscription and data harvesting businesses, not the movie business. They want proprietary content that forces the serious viewers — the ones who really want to watch a given movie for whatever reasons — to their platforms. They silo the content and hide it from the majority of potential viewers.
If they were trying to sell tickets and put butts in seats, their marketing approach would be the reverse.
Most of the streamers would be happy to see the theaters disappear. And they are actively sabotaging theatrical exhibition. They bought up the legacy studios not to make more great movies, but to get control of their catalogues of golden oldies.
In addition, streaming destroys any sense of immediacy and urgency. The highly committed active viewers will watch the movie immediately — these are the people that will hustle to see it in the theater if a streamer deigns to give it a perfunctory limited release — but most people will yawn, shrug, and maybe get around to it someday. It’s like picking up a book at Barnes and Noble will good intentions, and then tossing it onto the piles growing in the corners when you get home.
When I die, I could be cremated on a pyre of books I sincerely meant to read when I bought them, but never got around to it. That’s what the streamers are doing to the film industry. And since they have bought most of the legacy studios, they are now destroying their own product.
Which they will be happy to replace with AI generated slop meant to be played as background noise.
Streaming is rapidly destroying any possibity of a movie, even a great one, to have much cultural impact.
That happened to music a long time ago. Taylor Swift may very well be the last music superstar.
In music, there continues to be a healthy interest in live performances by the singers and groups that continue to bubble up at the grassroots. That’s where the music scene remains authentic and relatively healthy.
I don’t follow that scene, but I gather that some of these groups develop substantial followings. The problem is how to scale up and break out without being swallowed by the Borg. The same is true in cinema. The indies are still out there. They make films on often tiny budgets. A fraction of these might appeal to me, often more because they’re original, thoughtful and interesting even if they’re lacking the glitz and polish of big budget studio movies, which are often bland and soulless despite $50, 80, or 100 million budgets. I’m willing to give credit for concept, originality, and prioitizing a story with integrity and good acting as opposed to dazzling special effects.
And some of the indies are good enough to break out. But they need screens, film festivals and theatrical exhibition to find an audience. The streamers are rarely interested. And even if they do occasionally greenlight something from an indie producer with a good pitch, the contract will come with the 300 page corporate responsibility rulebook and 16 Executive Producers from corporate to interfere.
I’ve got my eye on a couple of early 2026 releases, which I picked up from festival selection lists. One is an indie that every major studio passed on, for reasons that (I think and hope) reflect well on the movie and badly on the biggies. The other was microbudgeted and shot in complete secrecy; it only surfaced as a Sundance selection a couple of weeks ago. No one had any idea that it existed until then. I’ll report to the movie ping list if they’re any good. And I’ll urge people to move quickly to see them in the theater, because that’s the only way to cut out the Borg.
I think the future is tribute bands, much like Symphony orchestras still play the classics like Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, etc.
Instead it will be The Beatles, Stones, etc. who can create the most realistic reconstruction of what their live gigs sounded like.
Even more obscure bands have tribute bands that do pretty well, an example being “The Musical Box”, which is a Genesis tribute band that’s been around for a long time, or the “Australian Pink Floyd”
I’m partial to the Civil War reenactor guys, both solo acts and small groups. Somehow, for reasons I cannot understand, none of these ever seem to break out and make the charts.
But live performances incorporating the jawbone of an ass beat anything contemporary artists do with electric guitars and fancy studio trickery.
They also have a female singer who can "do" Karen Carpenter exceedingly well ...
You tube is free
The music companies did it to themselves long before streaming got big.
Acts used to issue an album a year, and then tour to support it. We had many bands to choose from and autotune was not a thing.
Now, they release an album every 3-4 years and it kills off any buzz new acts have to establish themselves. By the time the next album is released, they are forgotten.
Also, there are no more bands being pushed anymore. The big studios don’t sign them as it is easier to deal with just one person with streaming.
All music seems to be female centric now also, so music for males is almost non-existent. Basically, most music now is utter trash which is why 70’s groups are able to sell their catalogue of music for hundreds of millions.
Have you ever watched Postmodern Jukebox on youtube? They take hits and do a different take on them. I got to see them live last year. Good fun.
I wouldn’t have noticed had I not read this headline.
It won’t happen until 2029, though, so you still have 3 years to not watch!.................
True what you say, re: linear TV.
Some films are still worth watching on the big screen in a theater though!
Absolutely.
I’ll add my now-standard “for the good of the order” plea that those of us who still value good movies should make a conscious effort to see the good ones in the theater.
You and I can dim the lights, sit quietly, and watch a movie at home with full attention. But most people don’t watch movies that way, and the streamers know it. So they are now making movies for people who AREN’T paying attention.
The streamers want generic content for the generic global viewer, and they know most of those viewers are channel surfing, multi-tasking couch potatoes who look up from their phones from time to time if something dramatic enough to catch their attention happens in the movie.
This is nothing you don’t know, but the streamers aren’t making movies for us anymore. If a good movie sometimes slips through the content mill, it’s because there is still a saving remnant of insightful writers, well-trained directors, and actors who are serious about their craft who still want to do good work.
But more likely, the streamers’ good movies will be indies and foreign films that were made outside the big studio system and then picked up cheap for distribution. The streamers buy the rights, drop them into a film catalogue, and strip the creators of any backend revenue streams. Tnd The streamers are destroying the ecosystem that gives the indies a chance to make small films, find screens, and find an audience.
A lot of movies for me translates into 10 or 12 movies in theaters in a year. That’s more than most people see, but it’s far fewer than the average person saw back before television diverted so much of the audience. But if people like us don’t support the good movies when they’re made, they will becone even rarer than they are. It’s on us.
At this point, several of the usual suspects are likely to show uup and say they gave up on theaters because of bad viewer behavior. Frankly, I have NEVER encountered that in the six or seven years since I had my Road to Damascus moment, realized that I had a huge blindspot, and reengaged with movies as an active, selective ticket buyer. I just don’t go to idiot bait movies.
The idiots may be down at the other end of the hall behaving as idiots do, but I’m ten doors away in one of the smaller theaters, and the audience is quieter than a churchmouse. A lot of people need to broaden their horizons.
The Sundance Film Festival is coming up. It is sticking with a hybrid model, and a majority of it’s selections will be available online. Most don’t interest me, but several do. I expect to watch 4-6. If I like them, I will make a point of seeing them in the theater when they come around. And if they interest me enough to revisit again, I would rather buy a DVD or Blu-Ray than subscribe to a streamer.
good plan!
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