Julia Stoll
Research expert covering TV and video media
TV and movie award shows - statistics & facts
At the 2024 Golden Globes ceremony, host Jo Koy declared “Hollywood is back.” But is it? In fact, the success of the simultaneous release of “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” in 2023 gave hope that the industry could be recovering from the pandemic with audiences heading back to the cinema. Furthermore, TV viewership of a few awards shows grew slightly after years of declining audiences. However, representation and inclusion have become much-discussed issues in the world of cinema and TV awards, as the lists of voters, nominees, and winners do not fully reflect the diversity of moviegoers and film makers.
The 2024 awards season demonstrated that changes are occurring within the industry, however minority representation still has a long way to go. As far as ratings are concerned, a return to the highs reached back in the early 2000s is unlikely.
Award shows still lack diversity
Voters at the most prestigious awards show in the U.S., the Academy Awards, are mainly white and men, a pattern that is visible both on screen and behind the scenes across major award shows. For the 2024 ceremony, box office hit “Oppenheimer” scored the most nominations. The highest-grossing movie of 2023, “Barbie,” still received eight nominations. However, neither Greta Gerwig as director nor Margot Robbie as actress were nominated, which resulted in media outcry and triggered another intense discussion about representation in the entertainment industry. The Golden Globes, organized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, is also no exception. In 2021, for example, Chloé Zhao became the second woman in Golden Globes’ history to be awarded Best Director for her work on “Nomadland.” The event also featured the highest number of female Golden Globes nominees in the Best Director category for the first and last time. Although progress was made since, NBC skipped the 2022 broadcast to accelerate the meaningful reform of the HFPA members to become more diverse.Rebound vs record-low ratings
After improvements were made to address the diversity problem of the Golden Globes, the show switched from NBC to CBS in 2024, and viewership grew again, reversing previous years’ declining trend. By contrast, the Emmy Awards, celebrating excellence in television programming, hit another record low in audience numbers for its postponed show in 2024. For comparison, over 21 million viewers tuned in to watch the live event in 1994 and 2000, highlighting how drastically audience interest has declined since then. Even the Academy Awards have failed to draw viewers’ attention recently. Despite a visible upswing from the previous years, the audience was still only half the size it used to be back in 2015.The 2024 awards season demonstrated that changes are occurring within the industry, however minority representation still has a long way to go. As far as ratings are concerned, a return to the highs reached back in the early 2000s is unlikely.
