Oscars Move Exclusively to YouTube in 2029 Ending TV Era

- I'm sittin'. I'm sat. - We're seated, as they say. (upbeat music) Hey everyone, welcome to "Firefox Hot Takes" where we fan the flames of Internet culture. I'm Steve Flavin. - And I'm Hannah Bullion. - First off, it's 2026. We're kicking off the new year. I mean, we're fully in the new year. We're almost a month in at this point. But now that "Outside the Fox" is back, our other podcast on the Firefox channel, - Yay!

- We'll be posting "Hot Takes" less frequently. It'll be more like an occasional special when we have room in our schedule, or if we're doing a special event like TwitchCon last year. But we wanted to jump in 'cause there are a few hot topics that have boiled up over the last couple months that we definitely have a POV on. - We've got hot takes, and even though we might not be filming them, know that we have them, and we are itching to share them. - We're saving them. We're banking our hot takes. One of which relates to the Oscars, which, we're fully in award season right now.

Oscars are coming up. In 2029, the Oscars are going to be broadcast exclusively on YouTube. Whether that's good or bad, I think that there's a lot to discuss there. - I think it's so interesting. I remember Slacking that to you right before Christmas and just being like, "This is gonna mean a lot." - Yeah. My reaction was full, like mind blown emoji. 'Cause I hadn't read the headlines yet, so, - [Hannah] Yeah. - I heard it here first. It's kind of a big deal.

It's kind of the end of an era when it comes to the original Oscars telecast. - I think it's really interesting! I think it's totally changing the way we're watching live TV. We already have been seeing it, but something as prestige as the Oscars? - Yeah, people have thoughts and feelings about this. Previously, the Oscars telecast has aired on ABC. Notably, viewership for the Oscars ceremony has declined over the years.

I believe the peak was in 1998, which was the year that "Titanic" was nominated for Best Picture. That was a high of 57 million viewers. Last year, by comparison, it was about 20 million, which notably was a five-year high. It was actually a 1% increase year-over-year. But how far the mighty have fallen. It's just like not that much part of the cultural conversation. I think has as much to do with the films that are typically nominated these days.

- Yeah. - Like back in the day, it felt like more crowd-pleasers had a chance of getting in there, and now it tends to be more niche-like. - Yeah. - Awards bait kinds of dramas. - Yeah. - That are great films, but also they don't necessarily draw as much mainstream attention. - Can I say something about it being on YouTube? - Yeah! - And this is kind of my number one feeling on it, is, at least it's free. And we're gonna get really high quality, and really fast fan edits and memes. And I love a prestigious award show.

I love to be locked into it. But what I really love more than that is afterwards, to be scrolling on my phone and watch it again on my feeds and watch my favorite celebrities such as Timothee Chalamet in their little fan cams to my favorite song at the moment. And so that's something I'm excited about. That's gonna happen irregardless. But I think that being on YouTube is gonna make it fast and fun and it makes it so anyone can watch it, and maybe in turn, here's another hot take. Maybe in turn, more people will tune into the Oscars, and then the year after that, more people will go to the movies and see all of the movies that are nominated again.

- Yeah. I mean that's one way to look at it, for sure. I'm a cinephile. We're both cinephiles. We're both really into movies. I feel like these days you watch more movies than I do, which, like, that's fair. That's fine. I've reached a point where I'm like, I don't actually have to watch every movie. And it's like literally impossible to see everything. So maybe I'll be more selective with what I choose to watch. - The difference between you and I watching movies is I'm only catching up.

I might be watching more movies right now, but you've watched more movies in your life. And so I'm playing catch up. I'm playing a good deal of catch up. - That's fair, yeah. - And also I think that my take about wanting more people to go to the movies in turn for maybe being able to watch the Oscars is purely an optimistic take. I think it's really fair to get frustrated by the lack of movies that aren't having theatrical releases. And so I'm just trying to lead with optimism, so that more movies get that, and think of some of these things

that are maybe opening it up to a wider audience. - Yeah. - That's a good thing. - Here's an anecdote, here's an anecdote actually. I was at the Mozilla holiday party for the LA people. And we were, it was a lunch, which was interesting. - Okay. - We had a marketing one that was a dinner. And then for all of Mozilla, and there aren't actually that many of us that live in LA, so it was a fairly small group. But that was a lunch and we were there, and we were talking a little bit about movies. I think that evening, I went to go see something.

What did I go see? Oh, I was going to a holiday party that evening, and then after the holiday party, I had tickets to see "Avatar" at the Chinese Theater, which was kind of unhinged, because it was like 10:30, and it was like a three-hour movie. So I'm like, I'm just got, like, I've got a full schedule. It was like a Friday. - That's a crazy day! - Anyway, at lunch, we were talking about movies. When they learned that I was to go see "Avatar," they're like, "Oh, that's too long." And it's like three. Movies, I would agree, I love a good tight 90. I think movies are too long, generally these days. But also, I don't know, like if it's a good movie, and it holds your attention, I don't really care how long it is.

Like I'm just gonna budget the time for it, you know? - I fully agree. I think I agree. Movies are too long. "Marty Supreme," 15 minutes too long. 15 minutes. A lot of movies are 15 minutes too long. But that being said: I'm sittin'. I'm sat. - We're seated, as they say. - After like, I'm like, "Oh, 90 minutes have passed. 120 minutes have passed. I've gotta go!" - Well, what I was going to say, just to circle back to the conversation that we had.

The general takeaway, the vibe at the table is like, most people don't really go to the movies anymore. - No! - Which is anecdotal. I mean, we know this just based on box office numbers, and like ticket sales. But it used to be such a mainstream pastime. And I don't know, I mean, it's not our job to figure out what's wrong with the film industry. But I feel like there's this sort of dichotomy of big budget, like Marvel movies and these, movies that cost half a billion dollars to produce. And they basically, they literally have to gross one to $2 billion worldwide in order to even break even,

because they split the revenue with theaters, but then also there are marketing costs. And so it's like the math just doesn't quite math. The risks are much higher, and with something like "Avatar," that seems to be printing money these days, it's like, well, that's great that you have a somewhat reliable franchise, but that isn't always the case. Like you can check boxes and like try to engineer something that's gonna be a crowd pleaser, and it really boils down to so many different variables, right?

- Yeah. - And the opposite of that is these smaller movies that, there's been a lot of lamenting over the death of like the mid-tier, mid-budget adult drama that used to be fairly mainstream, and now is increasingly become these kind of niche awards contenders. But "One Battle After Another" is an example of like, it's a great film nominated for lots of awards. It wasn't tremendously successful, - No. - At the box office, right? So it's like a fairly niche audience, but it wasn't exactly a low-budget movie either. And so. But remains to be said, like, do movies, like should we be making movies like that?

I would argue that we should be, this is a very long roundabout way of bringing it back to the Oscars and accessibility and making it something that people can access on YouTube. - Yes. - I myself, like I don't have a cable subscription. You can get an antenna for your TV and dial into ABC, or like wherever, the main channels, and be able to see special events like that. But it's kind of a pain to do that. - Oh yeah! - You have to go out of your way to do that, unless you happen to have either a cable subscription or something like, I don't know, like a Sling TV or something which has access to those channels on your streamer, which costs a lot of money.

It's like you might as well have a cable subscription. - I think it's even better with YouTube, where it's literally free, and anyone can view it. - You don't even need a login for that. I mean, it'll have ads, obviously, but I would say, the last, when I say recently, it was probably within the last 10 years or so. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've actually watched the Oscars in the last 10 years. And those instances were at the occasional Oscars party, where it's on in the background, right?

It's like the purpose is to go somewhere to watch them. - Yeah. - But most of the time, I'm honestly just refreshing my feed and just seeing in real time when it's announced, and then I catch the highlights on YouTube. Like that's literally how I consume the Oscars. Very rarely do I sit and watch through the whole ceremony. - Yeah, I mean I've been watching the Oscars in full for years, just ever since I was even a kid. I remember watching it with my parents, and watching award shows, just 'cause I loved seeing people in their outfits when I was younger.

Like, I love the dresses. And then when I started working, I'm sure you know this, but I don't know if viewers know, I used to work at Refinery29 and we would cover the Oscars and all of the award shows live. - Oh, cool. - But what I was doing in those moments, I was creating those viral moments of the award show that people would engage with. And nine times out of 10, those people engaging with that content on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, even, they weren't watching. They were just like, "Oh, hey, I like this actor." Or "Hey, I like this celebrity, let me like this.

Let me comment on this." It's not that they're caring about the Oscars. And so the last few years when I haven't been working in media and have been able to just freely enjoy the Oscars, I think it's been so fun. It's so fun to kind of watch it happen live and enjoy it, and then have those moments when you're looking at your phone, and you're like seeing little clippets of Kylie Jenner and Timothee Chalamet, or little backstage moments that are really fun. So I really like the full experience of it, but I understand if you're not committed to one of your favorite actors winning, or one of your favorite movies winning, there's really no good reason to tune in if you have to do all the work.

- Yeah. - And so I'm for making it accessible, make it on YouTube, stream it on YouTube. Like, okay! - It's different now. - Yeah. - Like we live in a different era. In 1998, if you wanted to learn who won, you would have to watch the Oscars or tune into a news program where they summarized it or read the news the next day. But if you wanna know as it's happening, now, that's not required. I can know what's happening as it's happening without watching the Oscars. How prestigious is it to have an event that nobody watches?

- Yeah! - I mean, I guess the definition of exclusivity is like nobody's watching it, but there's tons of award ceremonies in Hollywood that are not televised. - No. - So it kind of begs the question like, why does it even need to be televised? Well, I mean. - And if you're doing all of the things that you're doing, I'm thinking as a producer, I wanna make sure as many eyeballs as humanly possible are tuned into my work, because I'm not making these moments, putting together tables of celebrities for nothing. - Well, just to close the loop on YouTube and the Oscars on YouTube, is it fire or is it tired?

- I think if you would've asked me in December, I'd say tired. But after some radical optimism, I've decided it's fire. - I think it's fire! I'm down to watch the Oscars on YouTube, or portions of it. Like I think that's totally fine. So we'll see. But it's the end of an era for sure. Well, on that note, that is all the time that we have for this episode. So let us know what you think of the comments and we'll see you next time.

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