Turn the Oscars from boring twaddle to a marketing tool.(Column)

Advertising Age, March, 2009 by Bloom, Jonah

Byline: Jonah Bloom

The oscars suck.

They suck for host ABC, for whom they should be a TV event to rival the Super Bowl. The network treated the news that 36 million people tuned in for this year's show as a success story. Indeed, it was a 13% increase over last year and a decent-size audience in the age of fragmentation. But the numbers are poor in the context of the show's own high watermark-the 55 million who watched the "Titanic'' Oscars of '98.

They're even more disappointing when set against other TV events such as the Super Bowl, which drew over 95 million this year and has hit record highs twice this decade. Barack Obama's speech to Congress last week scored over 50 million viewers across channels.

They also suck for those...

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