Checking for the Pulse of Award Shows

Media fragmentation and polarization has seemingly broken one of America’s cultural touchstones

Since the turn of the millennium, the Academy Awards — better known as the Oscars — have seen viewership collapse. In the past few years, the Oscars have recovered some ground as the show becomes more accessible to digital audiences driven by youth interest.

I didn’t watch much TV as a kid, but I always tuned in for award shows. I may not have seen or known half the nominees, but that wasn’t the point. The biggest stars in music performed their latest hit. Celebrity drama played out in real time. And the night concluded with a pivotal moment: Album of the Year, Best Picture, the Video Vanguard Award.

It felt definitive, as though through this ceremony culture was being summarized and sealed in an envelope.

Today, such cultural touch points are rare. Movies and albums are packaged for a select audience — particularly of a definitive ideology and demographic — on their preferred platforms. Instead of people consuming content and then formulating their opinions, much of our viewpoints are outsourced to the media. And when it comes to the shows they did watch, consumers are defensive and judge harshly. The viewership of award shows like the Oscars suffer as the landscape forces them to cater to only the most informed and hardened voices.

Over the past two decades, evolving media technology unraveled the business behind the great modern American tradition of award shows. First, MTV essentially imploded as a business model. With YouTube and social media replacing cable as the primary vehicle for music videos and Hollywood news, the gravitational pull of pop culture shifted to digital. Audiences can now tune in to exactly their favorite kind of content, not merely what is airing on one of the prominent cable networks. Many cut the cord, ending their access to major channels like CBS or ABC, as they turn to streaming services like Netflix or HBO Max.

Simultaneously, the diversity push of the late 2010s brought about a broader cultural reckoning. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Recording Academy found themselves under pressure to diversify nominees and winners. After years of criticism about homogeneity — crystallized by movements like #OscarsSoWhite — they recalibrated. To some viewers, that recalibration felt overdue and necessary. To others, it felt abrupt and ideological. Acceptance speeches grew more political. Social causes took center stage. The broadcast was no longer just about art. It was about cultural positioning — not just to avoid cancellation, but to win applause for adherence to the latest trending issue.

Media fragmentation and polarization has seemingly broken one of America’s cultural touchstones. Those shared moments, marked by a modern tradition of gathering around a single screen, are exceedingly rare.

Award shows were built for something-of-a monoculture. There was a time when the biggest film of the year was also the most talked about film of the year. When radio determined the national soundtrack. When a handful of networks mediated fame. In that world, an awards ceremony could plausibly claim to summarize the year in culture. Our systems are no longer designed for that, and the feedback loop is working in reverse of bringing us back there.

Today, a blockbuster franchise can generate billions globally while a Best Picture winner might be seen primarily by urban cinephiles and streaming subscribers. A song can rack up a billion streams on Spotify while remaining invisible to older demographics who still anchor awards voting blocs. TikTok can turn an unknown artist into a household name faster than any label executive — yet institutional recognition lags behind the algorithm. As a result, award shows reaffirm the experiences of a select audience, while feeling out of touch to many others.

To the general public, the Oscars have always been a bit of a snobbier affair than other shows. Acting is, after all, an elite art marked by hundreds-of-million dollar budgets and years of work. Unlike music awards, they include less performances and TMZ-curated moments. In many ways, the Oscars are simply boring. Their focus on overly serious films only compounds that feeling.

Few of the movies nominated for the best picture award intrigued me enough to see them — even Timothée Chalamet’s Marty Supreme, a “sports comedy-drama film” about ping pong. Two nominees for Best Picture, Hamnet and Frankenstein, find their source texts from classic literature. Others include another bizarre Emma Stone movie, something with Leonardo DiCaprio, naturally, and several intense dramas. The only one that looks light and action filled enough to appeal to a wide audience is F1, a good old race car movie about the world’s premiere racing.

In an era where content is already divided into a thousand different channels and platforms, it didn’t help things that many of the nominated films weren’t broadly screened. Train Dreams premiered only in select theaters before being sent to Netflix. Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent were both aired internationally, in their respective countries. One Battle after Another is awaiting a theatrical release, but can be found on streaming. The media fragmentation is real.

And all of these nominees largely cater to certain audiences. They are marketed as intense, serious and a bit provocative. There is nothing wrong with those traits. But the lack of variety is evidence of a distinct expectation of what an Oscar nominee looks like. Comedy, if present at all, must always be dark, for some reason. Each story seems to be heavy, something I’m unlikely to binge after work.

The Oscars are searching for a way back into the mainstream — just like cable news. So far, the films seem appropriately representative of the multiracial country and are more representative of the newer media apparatus. Those are necessary adjustments. What’s missing is something simpler: a sense of fun.

Sam Raus is the David Boaz Resident Writing Fellow at Young Voices, a political analyst and public relations professional. Follow him on X: @SamRaus1.