The History of The Oscars: The Academy Awards, usually known as the Oscars, are cinema industry awards for creative and technical quality. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) presents them annually in celebration of excellence in cinematic achievements as judged by the Academy’s voting membership. Many consider the Academy accolades to be the most prestigious and significant accolades in the entertainment business in the United States and around the world. The Oscar statuette features an Art Deco-style knight. Here is The History of The Oscars
History
The first Academy Awards ceremony took place on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner gathering at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel for around 270 attendees.
The Mayfair Hotel hosted the post-awards celebration. Guest tickets for that night’s ceremony were $5 ($85 in 2020 dollars). Fifteen statuettes were given out, recognizing artists, directors, and other members of the film industry from 1927 to 1928. The ceremony lasted about 15 minutes.
Winners were announced to the media three months prior to this first presentation. The results were supplied to newspapers for publishing at 11:00 p.m. on the night of the awards for the second ceremony in 1930 and the rest of the first decade.
Additional Awards
In addition to the Academy Award of Merit (Oscar), the Academy presents nine honorary (non-competitive) honors from time to time (which may or may not take the shape of an Oscar statuette);
- Governors’ Medals:
- The Academy Honorary Award (presented annually)
- The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award has been given since 1938.
- Since 1957, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award has been given.
- Academy Award of Merit (non-competitive);
- Scientific and Engineering Award (in the form of a bronze tablet);
- Technical Achievement Award (annual) (in the form of a certificate);
- John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation (since 1978) (in the form of a medal); Gordon E. Sawyer Award (since 1982);
- The Academy Student Academy Awards (annual).
Ratings
Viewership of the program has historically been greater when box-office hits are favored to win the Best Picture award. In 1998, the year of Titanic, which earned a box office total of US$600.8 million in its first 1997-98 run in the US, more than 57.25 million viewers turned in to the program for the 70th Academy Awards, a box office haul that would remain unparalleled for years.
Despite celebrating 80 years of the Academy Awards, the 2008 program was watched by 31.76 million viewers on average with an 18.66% household rating, making it the lowest-rated and least-watched ceremony at the time. Another indie film (No Country for Old Men) won Best Picture at that particular ceremony.
Whereas the 92nd Academy Awards received an average of 23.6 million viewers, the 93rd Academy Awards received an even lower viewership of 10.4 million, the lowest viewership recorded by Nielsen since it began tracking audience totals in 1974. The 94th and 95th editions received 16.6 and 18.7 million viewers, respectively, remaining below the 92nd edition’s audience.
Gift appreciation to Presenters
It has become a custom to provide gift bags to Oscar presenters and performers. These prizes have recently been extended to award nominees and winners. Each of these gift bags has a monetary worth in the tens of thousands of dollars. The value was believed to be as high as US$80,000 in 2014. The value has escalated to the point that the Internal Revenue Service of the United States released a statement about the gifts and their taxable status. Vacation packages to Hawaii, Mexico, and Japan have been included in Oscar gift bags, as well as a private dinner party for the recipient and guests at a restaurant, videophones, a four-night stay at a hotel, watches, bracelets, spa treatments, bottles of vodka, and so on.
NUMBER OF VIEWERS FOR THE PAST 10 YEARS
| YEAR | NUMBER OF VIEWERS |
| 2014 | 43,740 Million |
| 2015 | 37.260 Million |
| 2016 | 34.3 Million |
| 2017 | 32.9 Million |
| 2018 | 26.5 Million |
| 2019 | 29.6 Million |
| 2020 | 23.6 Million |
| 2021 | 10.4 Million |
| 2022 | 16.6 Million |
| 2023 | 18.7 Million |
Locations
The awards were presented at Hollywood’s Pantages Theatre from 1950 through 1960. With the introduction of television, the awards were held simultaneously in Hollywood and New York from 1953 to 1957. First at the NBC International Theatre (1953) and subsequently at the NBC Century Theatre (1957). After which the ceremony was held only in Los Angeles. In 1961, the Oscars were relocated to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California. By 1969, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had decided to return the ceremonies to Downtown Los Angeles this time to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Music Center. The ceremony was moved back to the Shrine Auditorium in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
By 2002, The Dolby Theatre (formerly known as the Kodak Theatre) in Hollywood became the new venue for the presentation .
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