The Nielsen Company's Recap of the 2008 Academy Awards

The Nielsen Company's Recap of the 2008 Academy Awards

NEW YORK, Feb. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- The Nielsen Company today released an analysis of viewing and advertising trends from the 80th Academy Awards. The highlights include:

-- ADVERTISING: J.C. Penney's American Living Home Furnishings
advertisement at 10:14 p.m. was the highest rated commercial minute of
the show. In all, 43 national advertisements aired this year, with
L'Oreal and Coca-Cola tied as the top advertisers.
-- TELEVISION: This year's Oscars telecast on the ABC Network attracted 32
million U.S. viewers. Among the ten largest local markets, the highest
ratings were in New York and the lowest were in Houston.
-- DVR: Of the 32 million total viewers, 2 million people chose to watch
the Oscars later the same evening via digital video recorders.
-- ONLINE: Oscars buzz in the blogosphere and traffic to Oscars-related
Web sites shot up immediately after the February 24 awards telecast.

Advertising Trends

Nielsen Monitor-Plus, Nielsen's advertising intelligence service, analyzed advertising for the 2008 Academy Awards telecast and found that the total number of commercial minutes fell from 24 minutes in 2007 to 23 minutes during this year's show. In all, 43 national advertisements aired this year, continuing a trend of fewer commercials.

Top-Rated Commercials

The J.C. Penney American Living Home Furnishings advertisement that ran at 10:14 p.m. was the most watched commercial during this year's Academy Awards (See Table 1). It had a rating of 11.3, which includes the show's live audience and viewing that was recorded and played back on digital video recorders (DVRs) during the same evening.

Table 1: Top-Rated Commercials
Viewers 2+, Live Plus Same Day
Commercial
Minute
Rating
Rank Parent / Brand Description Air Time (SD)*

J.C. Penney Co. Inc. / Couples /
American Living Home Ballerinas /
1 Furnishings Farm / Family 10:14 PM 11.3

J.C. Penney Co. Inc. / Road / People /
2 American Living Apparel Couple / Guitar 9:40 PM 10.8

L'Oreal SA /
Superior Preference
3 Hair Color Woman in Dress 10:38 PM 10.8

Coca-Cola Co. / Coke can / Heart
4 MyCokeRewards.com / Dress 9:42 PM 10.6

Vehicle / Woman
General Motors Corp. / reads book /
5 Acadia Trucks House 9:41 PM 10.6

Jet / Roof tops
General Motors Corp. / / City / Vehicle
6 Acadia Trucks driven 11:05 PM 10.6

Man opens mouth
Johnson & Johnson / / Product used /
7 Listerine Mouthwash Woman 11:05 PM 10.6

Man with dog /
Barbershop /
8 Mars Inc. / M&Ms Candy Picture 9:42 PM 10.6

General Motors Corp. /
Cadillac Escalade Woman driving
9 Trucks truck / Escalade 11:36 PM 10.4

L'Oreal SA /
Dermo-Expertise Woman applies
Moisturizer-Facial Skin product /
10 Genesis Droplet 9:02 PM 10.4

Source: Nielsen Media Research
*Methodology: If a commercial had the majority of its duration in
minute N, we applied the minute N rating to that commercial

Top Advertisers

L'Oreal and Coca-Cola, which ranked among last year's leading Oscars advertisers, were the top advertisers for the 2008 telecast, with 31/2 minutes of commercial time each. General Motors, the number one advertiser for the 2006 and 2007 show, slipped to third place this year-where it tied with J.C. Penney (See Table 2). In the past three Academy Awards broadcasts, these four companies have claimed the top advertising slots.

Table 2: 2008 Top Advertisers
Commercial Time Number of
Advertiser (Seconds) Spots
L'Oreal 8
Coca-Cola Company 210 8

General Motors Corp. 180 5
J.C. Penney 5
Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus

Beyond the top four, McDonald's, which aired two 30-second spots this year, and American Express, which aired two 60-second spots, hold the distinction of being the only two companies that have advertised during the last 15 Academy Awards telecasts.

Commercial Minutes

Over the past five years, the number of commercial minutes in the Academy Award telecast reached a high of 271/2 minutes in 2005 (See Table 3). Since then, commercial time has declined sharply, shrinking to just 24 minutes in 2007. This year marked a new low: just 23 minutes of commercials.

Table 3: Commercial Minutes
Commercial Duration
Year (Minutes:Seconds)
2008 23:00
2007 24:00
2006 24:30
2005 27:30
2004 27:00
Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus

Promotional Announcements

ABC aired nine promotional announcements, spanning 3 minutes and 50 seconds, during this year's telecast. All but two of the promos were for primetime programs, including Eli Stone, Oprah's Big Give, and Dancing with the Stars.

Viewing the Commercials

To view full-motion commercials, storyboards and ratings from Academy Awards telecasts, visit Nielsen's Monitor-Plus website at https://www.nielsenmedia.com/monitorplus/specialevents.

Television Viewership

This year, 30 million Americans watched the Academy Awards live on the ABC Network, while an additional 2 million people viewed the telecast later in the same evening on DVR, Nielsen Media Research reports (See Table 4). The telecast averaged an 18.7 household rating.

Table 4: Television Ratings for
Academy Awards Telecasts
Academy Average Viewers on
Award Year ABC Network
2008 32 million
2007 40 million
2006 39 million
2005 42 million
2004 43 million
2003 33 million
2002 41 million
2001 43 million
Source: Nielsen Media Research

In the ten largest local U.S. markets, 8.2 million households tuned in to watch the Oscars. Among these, New York received the highest overall local rating this year (29.7), while Houston received the lowest (16.3). See Table 5 for more details.

Table 5: Top 10 Local Market
Ratings for 2008 Academy Awards
Telecast
Market Average
Rank Household
Local Market (size) Rating
New York 1 29.7
Chicago 3 28.5
San Francisco-Oak-San Jose 6 27.2
Los Angeles 2 25.8
Washington, DC 9 23.2
Philadelphia 4 23.1
Boston 7 22.2
Dallas-Ft. Worth 5 18.6
Atlanta 8 17.5
Houston 10 16.3
Source: Nielsen Media Research

Viewer Demographics

People in upper to upper-middle income brackets are almost twice as likely to watch the Oscars telecast, according to Claritas, Nielsen's marketing research unit. Of this group, a majority are women at least 35 years old, college educated, and living in the New England, Mid-Atlantic, or Pacific regions of the U.S., Spectra, Nielsen's lifestyle measurement service reports.

Although detailed demographic information about 2008 Academy Awards viewers is not yet available, data from Nielsen Media Research indicates that white viewers accounted for 86% of the 32 million people who tuned in for the show, while Hispanic and African-American viewers each accounted for approximately 7% of the total audience.

Online Usage

After the Academy Awards, fans flocked online to check out celebrities' red carpet fashions and review who had won Hollywood's biggest prizes. According to Nielsen Online, traffic to Yahoo's Oscars Web site, oscars.movies.yahoo.com, increased 201% the day after the telecast, from 751,000 unique visitors on the day of the Oscars to 2.3 million unique visitors on the following day, Monday, February 25.

Overall, however, Web traffic to Oscar-related sites on the day after the event declined collectively by 26% this year -- from 3.3 million unique visitors on post-Oscars Monday in 2007 to 2.4 million unique visitors on the same day in 2008.

Blogosphere Buzz

Nielsen Online monitored content on approximately 70 million blogs before, during, and after the Academy Awards. Immediately following the Academy Awards telecast on February 24, online conversations about the event shot up 500% above the last spike in Oscars-related blogging that occurred on January 22, when the award nominations were announced. Blog discussions following Sunday's awards telecast focused on post-show reactions, including thoughts on the night's winners and losers, as well as host Jon Stewart's performance.

Consumer Buzz

Nearly 600 members of The Nielsen Company's online, consumer-driven opinion network, Hey! Nielsen (www.heynielsen.com), took a stab at predicting this year's Oscar winners. Their votes were mostly on target: they accurately predicted the winners in the Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Director categories (See Table 6). But like most of the country and many Hollywood pundits, they were surprised by Marion Cotillard's win in the Best Actress category and Tilda Swinton's Best Supporting Actress victory.

Table 6: Hey! Nielsen Academy Award Winner Predictions
Hey! Nielsen % of Hey!
Predicted Nielsen
Category Winner Votes* Actual Winner

No Country No Country for
Best Picture for Old Men 38 % Old Men

Daniel Day
Lewis (There Daniel Day Lewis
Will Be (There Will Be
Best Actor Blood) 49 % Blood)

Best Javier Bardem Javier Bardem (No
Supporting (No Country Country for Old
Actor for Old Men) 4 % Men)

Ellen Page Marion Cotillard
Best Actress (Juno) 32 % (La Vie en Rose)

Cate
Best Blanchett Tilda Swinton
Supporting (I'm Not There) 26 % (Michael Clayton)
Actress Ruby Dee
(American
Gangster) 26 %

Joel Coen and Joel Coen and
Ethan Coen Ethan Coen (No
(No Country Country for Old
Best Director for Old Men) 46 % Men)

Best Animated
Film Ratatouille 81 % Ratatouille

Best Sicko 37 % Taxi to the Dark
Documentary Documentary Side
Source: Hey! Nielsen
*Includes data collected from Feb. 5 - Feb. 24, 2008

About The Nielsen Company

The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), online intelligence (NetRatings and BuzzMetrics), trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more that 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and New York, USA. For more information, please visit, www.nielsen.com.

Source: The Nielsen Company

CONTACT: Suzy Bausch, +1-408-941-2965, or Sandra Parrelli,
+1-646-654-7772, both of Nielsen Online; Jamillah Wright of Nielsen Monitor-
Plus, +1-646-654-8357; Anne Saini of Nielsen Media Research, +1-646-654-8691,
Karen Gyimesi of Hey! Nielsen, +1-646-654-8631

Web site:

http://www.nielsenmedia.com/
https://www.nielsen.com/
https://www.heynielsen.com/
https://www.nielsenmedia.com/monitorplus/specialevents

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