Are awards shows on TV about to get even duller?

It is hard to pinpoint the most shambolic part of this year’s Bafta Film Awards ceremony, broadcast live last Sunday in BBC1’s primetime evening slot. Was it Ariana DeBose’s opening number, in which the visibly out-of-breath singer performed a rap to honour female nominees that included the line “Other ladies in the room, supporting or leading, all here I presume”? Or the scripted gags delivered by celebrities presenting prizes, whose demeanours at the podium were less “gracious host” than “hostage awaiting rescue”? 

We are now deep into awards season, that time of year when the showbiz industries attempt to turn their annual office parties into televised entertainment. At the height of the pandemic they were either called off or conducted awkwardly via Zoom; as it subsided, they were meant to return bigger and better than ever. Yet recent editions have proved, at best, underwhelming. Last month’s Golden Globes ceremony was overlong and uneventful, aside from a remarkable opening monologue from host Jerrod Carmichael about the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s diversity problem (the organisation, which runs the awards, faced criticism in 2021 when it was revealed that none of its members was black).

Earlier this month at the Brit Awards, host Mo Gilligan repeatedly hailed the event’s party atmosphere, his thinking presumably being that, if he said it enough times, it would come to pass. It did not. The show scored low on fun and spectacle and high on screw-ups; at one point, viewers were left watching a video of Adele performing at the previous year’s event while producers did battle with the latest technical hitch.

But having things go wrong is arguably preferable to a show so slickly rehearsed that it ends up devoid of all spontaneity. Next month brings the Oscars, the first since last year’s infamous “Slapgate” — when a Chris Rock gag aimed at Jada Pinkett Smith prompted her husband Will Smith to walk on stage and strike Rock. Academy members took a dim view of Smith’s outburst, banning him from future events for 10 years. The Oscars’ future, or rather its money-spinning advertising deals (last year the average price of a 30-second commercial was $2.2mn), depends on nothing out of the ordinary happening, which is why this year they are deploying what Academy chief executive Bill Kramer has called a “crisis team” on-site to deal with anything untoward.

All of this underlines a reality that host networks seem unwilling to accept: that awards ceremonies rarely make good TV. Dwindling viewing figures certainly point to audience inertia — NBC’s telecast of this year’s Golden Globes averaged 6.3mn viewers, down 9 per cent on 2021, while the Oscars’ viewing figures have been on a downward spiral for a decade. Last year, more than 15mn Americans watched the show, a paltry turnout next to the 55.3mn who watched in 1998 when Titanic won almost everything. At 12.4mn US viewers, this year’s Grammys were up on last year, though the figure is still the third-smallest in its broadcasting history; were the Grammys a Netflix show, it would surely have been cancelled by now.

Part of the problem lies in the sheer number of events. That many of them end up with the same stars on rotation adds to the sense of awards show Groundhog Day. Then there’s the running times, with ceremonies typically exceeding three hours to accommodate endless and often obscure categories. (Compare that with the first Academy Awards in 1929, which comprised a private dinner and a ceremony lasting 15 minutes.) It’s no wonder that viewers are turning off in their droves, with many preferring to scroll through memes and highlights on social media the next morning.

While a well-chosen host can go some way to alleviate the tedium — check out Bob Hope, Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg’s respective stints hosting the Oscars to see how it’s done — an average one can spell disaster. If the Golden Globes’ repeated hiring of Ricky Gervais suggested a past appetite for caustic, edgy humour — the comic became famed for his merciless roasting of the A-listers in attendance — this year’s bookings (Jimmy Kimmel for the Oscars, Trevor Noah for the Grammys, Richard E Grant for the Baftas) point to a desire for a milder, safer presence less likely to fan the flames of online outrage.

It’s easy to carp, of course, especially when faced with actors showering one another with praise while clutching goody bags worth more than the average viewer’s annual salary. There is nothing wrong with an industry taking pride in its work and rewarding its own. But let’s not pretend that watching famous people crammed into auditoriums wearing outré outfits and rictus smiles is appointment TV. Why not go back to basics and do it behind closed doors? That way the stars can let their hair down and we can get back to the business of enjoying their work.

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