Oscars' answer to building up the audience: watch on two screens at once
Here's a novel way of getting the most out of the film world's big night, get your iPhone going at the same time!
Part of the ABC effort to keep the figures up involved letting viewers watch on two different screens at the same time. While the main TV was going full steam ahead in the living room, fans could turn on their laptops or iPhones and go behind the scenes to see guests schmoozing at the lobby bar, pop into the invitation-only Governors Ball, or even leap over the velvet rope and enter Oscar's exclusive Green Room.
This was all, say ABC, tapping into the "multi-tasking tendencies" of modern audiences. Three-quarters of people watching TV are doing something else simultaneously, going online, talking on mobiles or sending text messages, according to a new survey from Deloitte. Americans are, it seems, increasingly embracing an interactive two-screen (or three- or four-screen) approach to large-scale entertainment events.
The Oscar.com website lured subscribers with "exclusive cameras and content" at a price of $4.99. For 99 cents, customers could download an application for Apple's iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch that essentially offered the same package.
The cameras on offer had names like Fashion Cam, Famous Faces and Paparazzi Cam. So-called "360" cameras were stationed on the grand staircase of the Kodak Theatre.
The video quality was sometimes like the early days of the Internet, with frozen and pixilated images and jerky camera movements, said the LA Times. At one point a blurry image of winner-to-be Colin Firth looked like he had been photographed in a rainstorm.
The camera in the lobby bar offered close-ups of rows of glasses, skinny women in backless dresses and a bartender's balding pate, but not much more.
The backstage was better. Online viewers could watch supporting actress winner Melissa Leo being grilled about dropping the f-bomb in her acceptance speech. At the same time, on their living-room TVs, viewers could see screenwriter David Seidler accepting the Oscar for original screenplay, telling stutterers, "We have a voice. We have been heard."
The Times commented, "What the relentless words and imagery really could have used, at times, was a good editor — a difficult task with live streaming."
Social media was also in action throughout the evening. At one point the academy reported — via Twitter — that 1,600 Oscar-related tweets were being sent every minute. Even President Obama weighed in, tweeting "Did you know, 'As Time Goes By' is the AFI's No. 2 greatest song of all time?"
This year's Oscars also gave viewers a chance to forecasts the winners. Millions went online to do just that.
The organisers are definitely trying. But they still have a long way to go to reach the Superbowl coverage of 111 million or the 55 miilion that the Titanic Oscar show got in 1998.