Motion Picture Academy’s Urgent $500 Million Fundraising Campaign Post Oscars

It’s not quite to the point where the hashtag “OscarsSoBroke” will be trending, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is passing the hat around the globe.

A $500 million fundraising campaign was launched Friday with the goal of reaching the target by the 2028 Oscars, which would mark the 100^th Academy Awards.

This news comes just a few months after a generally poorly received 2024 Oscars, as well.

Although Academy officials talked about its global future in announcing the drive, it comes at a time when TV viewership of the annual awards show has been trending downward, according to an Agence-France Presse report posted on Barron’s.

The Academy’s contract with ABC to broadcast the show is up for renewal, and the show will face the reality that ratings are down from historic levels.

This year, for example, viewership of the show was about 21 million people, down from about 40 million viewers a decade ago.

The “global revenue diversification and outreach campaign” is dubbed Academy 100, according to Deadline.

“The future of the Academy is global, and Academy 100 will deepen our worldwide reach and impact,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer said.

“The Academy will soon enter its second century, and we want to ensure that we continue to be the preeminent leader of our international film community. Like all healthy organizations, the Academy needs a sustainable and diverse base of support, and we are deeply grateful to Rolex and all of our partners for helping us launch this important and forward-looking initiative.”

The Academy said it has commitments for more than $100 million from sponsors that include Rolex and Delta Air Lines.

The Academy said the money will  “endow and fund programs that recognize excellence in cinematic artistry and innovation; preserve our film history; enable the creation of world-class film exhibitions, screenings, and publications; train and educate the next generation of diverse global film artists; and produce powerful digital content.”

The aim of the event, held in Rome, was to highlight the Academy’s global purpose in its campaign, according to the Associated Press.

Writing for USA Today, Kelly Lawler noted that the 2024 show “started five minutes late, and it was only downhill from there.”

“The Oscar broadcast didn’t feel like anybody’s biggest night. It felt small, unimportant, skippable. It didn’t get anywhere close to the urgency or relevancy of the nominated films,” she wrote.

Lawler opined that “90 percent of Sunday’s broadcast could have happened at any Oscars (or really, any awards show) any year. The gently jabbing jokes, the expected winners, the overlong and overwritten bits, the dull speeches − they are so generic as to be soporific.”

“For some producers and hosts, a boring Oscars is far preferable to a bad one, and especially better than a trainwreck of a ceremony with say a slap or a wrong best picture winner announced,” she wrote.

“But as ratings for awards shows dwindle, it’s worth trying just a little harder to try to persuade people to spend their Sunday nights watching the rich and famous hand each other golden trophies,” Lawler continued.

She added: ‘This is Hollywood, after all. These people are supposed to know how to put on a show. Otherwise, why are we watching?”