Oscar Buzz

As we all know from reading Twitter and Facebook feeds last night, the Oscars were being aired on ABC. I am not particularly interested in watching prolonged TV award shows to hand out a couple trophies, but I thought it was interested how ABC and the Oscars tried to capitalize on streaming of the show. It was discussed in an article on TechCrunch.com by Sarah Perez entitled ABC's Handling of Oscars' Online & Mobile Streaming May Set Precedent for Future "Event TV" Airings. 

The Oscars were able to sell out of their ad inventory for almost $2 million dollars per advertisement; however, the interesting part is that the Oscars became available on many online sources at 6 AM this morning. In addition, the streaming contains 15 and 30 second advertisements throughout. In addition, it was not able to be streamed live, but attempted to appease the online audience with video highlights during the airing at Oscar.com . This shows how many marketers are experimenting with how to captivate audiences without cannibalizing either market. It definitely shows how the future could influence marketing of major events on the television and online.

Personally, the Oscars experiment to see how to capture the online audience and the television audience is interesting. They understand that during this day and age many more people are using the internet, but want to stick to the tradition of airing a television event similar to the Superbowl. This idea to stream the following day helps to create more advertising funding; however, it will have to be assessed which way is the most effective. In the long run, I think shows will deviate more towards the internet because of changes in culture and how age groups function. As a result, I think the target audience during award shows would be families and middle aged men and women. As generations progress, I think the internet will be a better distribution channel of information based on the lifestyle’s that my generation has become accustomed too. I can see why ABC and the Oscars would be interested in testing how audiences react. I look forward to reading about future development or trials.