The Oscars Are a Week Away, but How Many Will Watch?

TV ratings for awards shows have been in free fall, especially during the pandemic, and Hollywood doesn’t want the viewing public to toss its premier showcase into the entertainment dustbin.

LOS ANGELES — Neither intimate looks into stars’ living rooms nor scantily clad pop stars performing provocative hits have been able to stop audiences from tuning out award shows this year. The ratings for the Grammys were down by 53 percent. The Golden Globes plummeted by more than 60. Now, as Hollywood prepares for a coronavirus-delayed Academy Awards telecast on April 25 on ABC, it is faced with the ultimate doomsday scenario: that the viewing public is ready to toss its premier showcase into the entertainment dustbin, plopped next to variety shows. Oscar, meet Lawrence Welk and his bubbles. At a time when the traditional film industry is fighting for its primacy at the center of American culture — with at-home entertainment soaring in popularity and pandemic-battered theater chains closing — a collective shrug for the Oscars would send Hollywood deeper into an identity crisis. And a shrug certainly could happen. Guts + Data, a research firm that focuses on entertainment, said last month that only 18 percent of active film watchers (in theaters or at home) had heard of “Mank,” the Netflix film leading the Oscar race with 10 nominations.