The Nielsen Company's 2008 Guide to the Academy Awards

The Nielsen Company's 2008 Guide to the Academy Awards

NEW YORK, Feb. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- With the writers strike settled and the 80th Academy Awards confirmed for February 24 in Hollywood, California, The Nielsen Company today released its annual Guide to the Academy Awards, which showcases a wide range of consumer and media information illustrating the enormous impact the Academy Awards has in the U.S.

   Among the findings:    -- TELEVISION: The Academy Awards telecast on ABC Network continues to be      one of the highest rated TV events of the year, with last year's award      show attracting more than 41 million U.S. viewers.    -- BOX OFFICE AND BOOK SALES: Box Office figures for most Best Picture      Nominees increased significantly after the Academy Awards nominations      were announced.  Sales of books related to nominated movies also rose      after their nominations were announced.    -- MUSIC: Following last year's event, album sales and digital downloads      of songs performed during the Academy Awards telecast surged.  Will      this year's nominees reap the same post-Oscars benefits?    -- ONLINE: Oscars buzz in the blogosphere peaked after the February 13      announcement that the show would go on as planned.  But perhaps because      this year's event remained in doubt for several months, the Web sites      of nominated films received less traffic this year than in 2007.    -- ADVERTISING: The cost for a 30-second commercial edged up to an all-      time high in 2007, but total ad spending decreased slightly, from $80.7      million in 2006 to $79.9 million in 2007.    -- DEMOGRAPHICS OF ACADEMY AWARD VIEWERS: People in upper to upper-middle      income brackets are almost twice as likely to watch the Oscars      telecast.  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.     TELEVISION VIEWERSHIP  

In 2007, an average of 41 million Americans tuned in to the ABC Network to watch the Academy Awards, Nielsen Media Research reports. Last year, the event averaged a 23.6% household rating, up slightly from previous years.

The most-watched Academy Award broadcast in the last decade was in 1998 when Titanic was voted Best Picture. That telecast drew 55 million viewers for an average household rating of 34.9%. The lowest rated Oscars in recent years was in 2003 when Chicago was voted Best Picture: only 20% of U.S. homes tuned in for the telecast.

Among local U.S. markets, New York received the highest overall local rating for 2007 (35%), while the second largest local TV audience was in Los Angeles (32%). See Tables 1 and 2 for more details.

          Table 1: Television Ratings for Academy Awards Telecasts         Academy Award Year           Average Viewers on ABC Network              2007                           41 million              2006                           39 million              2005                           42 million              2004                           43 million              2003                           33 million              2002                           41 million              2001                           42 million         Source: Nielsen Media Research     Table 2: Top 10 Local Market Ratings for 2007 Academy Awards Telecast                          Market Rank    Average Household    Local Market           (size)            Rating    San Francisco-    Oak-San Jose             6               37.7   Chicago                   3               37.1   New York                  1               35.3   Los Angeles               2               32   Boston                    7               29.2   Washington, DC            9               29.2   Philadelphia              4               27   Atlanta                   8               26.8   Houston                  10               25.6   Dallas-Ft. Worth          5               24.5    Source: Nielsen Media Research  

Note: local TV ratings include data for time-shifted viewing within one week of the awards telecast.

Box Office Sales

Do Academy Award nominations impact the distribution and ticket sales of nominated movies? Nielsen EDI compared the number of theatres showing each movie and ticket sales before and after the nominations were announced on January 22 and found significant increases in most cases (See Tables 3 and 4).

                        Table 3: Number of Theatres                           Weekend Prior to    Weekend After   Movie                  Nominations         Nominations       % Change    Michael Clayton              33               1,102           3239%   There Will Be Blood         389                 885            128%   No Country for Old Men      818               1,107             35%   Atonement                 1,291               1,400              8%   Juno                      2,534               2,426             -4%    Source: Nielsen EDI                          Table 4: Box Office Receipts    Movie                     Total 3             Total 3                          Weekends Prior      Weekends After                          Nominations         Nominations       % Change    Michael Clayton             $170,893        $5,454,040          3091%   There Will Be Blood       $6,843,469       $13,501,867            97%   No Country for Old Men    $4,571,298        $6,840,326            50%   Atonement                $14,814,820        $8,935,793           -40%   Juno                     $41,439,508       $22,766,828           -45%    Source: Nielsen EDI    

Impressive gross sales are not a requirement for a nominee in the top categories. For example, There Will Be Blood, in movie theaters for seven weeks, earned only $28 million at the U.S. box office through February 14, while fellow nominee Juno pulled in close to $119.5 million since its December 25 release (See Table 5).

                 Table 5: Cumulative Gross Box Office Sales    Open Date           Nominated Movie            Gross Box Office Sales                        Best Picture    12/5/2007           Juno                          $119,464,789   11/9/2007           No Country for Old Men         $59,042,924   10/5/2007           Michael Clayton                $46,550,004   12/26/2007          There Will Be Blood            $27,944,883   12/7/2007           Atonement                      $45,999,123                        Best Actor   10/5/2007           Michael Clayton                $46,550,004   12/26/2007          There Will Be Blood            $27,944,883   12/21/2007          Sweeney Todd                   $52,127,564    9/14/2007          In the Valley of Elah           $6,775,540    9/14/2007          Eastern Promises               $17,181,265                        Best Actress   10/12/2007          Elizabeth: The Golden Age     $16,383,509    5/4/2007           Away From Her                  $4,571,521    6/8/2007           La Vie En Rose                $10,072,300   11/28/2007          The Savages                    $5,380,756   12/5/2007           Juno                         $119,464,789                        Best Director   12/5/2007           Juno                         $119,464,789   11/9/2007           No Country for Old Men        $59,042,924   10/5/2007           Michael Clayton               $46,550,004   12/26/2007          There Will Be Blood           $27,944,883   11/30/2007          The Diving Bell and the                        the Butterfly                 $4,488,924    Source: Nielsen EDI   *Includes sales data through Feb. 14, 2008.     BOOK SALES  

Nielsen BookScan, which covers 75% of sales in the book industry, took a look at sales of books that are related to the nominated movies. Table 6 below compares total 2007 sales with book sales since the release of the movie related to each title. All data below includes sales for hard and paperback formats.

            Table 6: Sales of Books Related to Nominated Movies                                                                    Book Sales                                 Year of      2007    U.S. Film    Since Film   Title            Author       Original      Sales    Release    Release                              Publication    (units)    Date       (units)*    Atonement       Ian McEwan      2002    295,000   1/4/08           196,000   No Country    for Old Men    Cormac McCarthy 2005   160,000   11/21/07          145,000   The Diving Bell    and the        Jean-Dominique    Butterfly       Bauby          1997    24,000   11/30/07           45,000   Oil!            Upton Sinclair  1927     6,000    1/11/08           18,000    Source: Nielsen BookScan  

Note: Nielsen BookScan does not track sales of books through WalMart, Sam's, BJ's, airports, or libraries.

   *Includes sales data through Feb. 10, 2008.     MUSIC SALES  

Billboard's Geoff Mayfield used data from Nielsen SoundScan to analyze sales of songs nominated for this year's Academy Awards. Of the current nominees for Best Original Song, three songs come from Walt Disney's Enchanted. That soundtrack album, released on November 20, 2007, had sold 195,000 copies in the U.S. as of February 10, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Enchanted's three nominated songs -- "Happy Working Song," "So Close," and "That's How You Know" -- have also sold a combined 177,000 digital downloads.

A surprise hit last year, the Once soundtrack -- nominated for "Falling Slowly" -- is also a notable contender this year. The album has sold 343,000 copies since it debuted on May 22, 2007, making it the tenth best-selling soundtrack of 2007. This year's fifth nominee, "Raise It Up," comes from the August Rush soundtrack, which has moved 103,000 copies since its release on November 13, 2007.

Last year, songs from Dreamgirls -- "Listen," "Love You I Do," and "Patience" -- also locked up three out of five nominations in the Best Original Song category. None of the Dreamgirls songs won the Oscar, however. That honor went to Melissa Etheridge's "I Need To Wake Up" from the soundtrack for An Inconvenient Truth.

Despite losing to Etheridge's song, Dreamgirls sales rose 19% after last year's Academy Awards telecast. The album shifted 45,000 copies in the week immediately following the event and finished 2007 as the sixth best-selling soundtrack of the year, according to Nielsen SoundScan. To date, it has sold 1.1 million units in the U.S.

The three nominated songs from Dreamgirls also saw handsome gains in their download sales following last year's Academy Awards. "Love You I Do" sold 6,000 downloads in the first week after the event (a 100% increase), "Patience" downloads increased by 53%, and "Listen" increased downloads jumped by 73%.

Meanwhile, last year's winner, Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up," experienced a 295% gain in downloads in the week of the Academy Awards, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Perhaps viewers, moved by Etheridge's win, rushed to their computers to download her song immediately after the telecast.

ONLINE USAGE

In 2007, traffic to the three major Oscar Web sites (oscars.movies.yahoo.com, oscar.com, and oscars.org) reached 1.8 million unique visitors on the day of the awards ceremony, according to Nielsen Online. On the day after the telecast, combined Web traffic to these sites increased 81% to 3.3 million unique visitors. Traffic to these three Web sites grew 183% during the week of the Academy Awards, from 905,000 unique visitors in the previous week to 2.6 million unique visitors in the days leading up to the ceremony.

Last year, Oscar.com grew 88% year over year, from an Oscars week unique audience of 720,000 to 1.4 million.

This year, the writers' strike left the Academy Awards ceremony in doubt for several months, perhaps resulting in less Web traffic to the sites of nominated films. Web sites for this year's Oscar contenders received just 831,000 unique visitors during January 2008 -- compared with 993,000 in January 2007.

BLOGOSPHERE Buzz

Drawing on its database of approximately 70 million blogs, Nielsen Online monitors consumer-generated content on the Internet before, during, and after the Academy Awards to provide advertisers with both quantitative and qualitative insight into virality and the popularity of the event and the nominees.

Table 7 shows the percentage of blog buzz related to this year's Best Actor and Actress nominees. With 32.24% buzz volume, Johnny Depp dominated Academy Awards discussion on blogs. Depp far outpaced George Clooney, who claimed second place, with 13.74% of the blog buzz. Laura Linney was least buzzworthy.

                         Table 7: Blog Buzz Online                                 % of Internet Buzz Related to Oscars Among                                         All Best Actor Candidates      Best Actor Nominees                    (Last 90 Days)*         Johnny Depp                            32.24%        George Clooney                         13.74%        Ellen Page                             10.84%        Daniel Day-Lewis                        9.56%        Cate Blanchett                          9.27%        Tommy Lee Jones                         6.56%        Viggo Mortensen                         5.29%        Julie Christie                          4.74%        Marion Cotillard                        4.40%        Laura Linney                            3.36%                                              100.00%   Source: Nielsen Online   *Includes data from Nov. 17, 2007 - Feb. 14, 2008.     CONSUMER BUZZ  

The members of The Nielsen Company's new consumer-driven opinion network, Hey! Nielsen (www.heynielsen.com), who recently rated ads during the Super Bowl, are now making predictions on who will win Oscar gold. The predictions in eight major categories reveal a few clear front-runners: Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, and Ratatouille, to name a few. There are also several tight races heading into Oscars night. In the Best Actress category, newcomer Ellen Page holds a slim lead over double-nominee Cate Blanchett, while Blanchett and Ruby Dee are tied in the Best Supporting Actress contest. The full results are compiled in Table 8 below.

           Table 8: Hey! Nielsen Academy Award Winner Predictions       Category                Leading Nominees            % of Votes    Best Picture               No Country for Old Men              35%   Best Actor                 Daniel Day Lewis                              (There Will Be Blood)               46%   Best Supporting Actor      Javier Bardem                              (No Country for Old Men)            42%   Best Actress               Ellen Page (Juno)                   33%   Best Supporting Actress    Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There)      26%                              Ruby Dee (American Gangster)        26%   Best Director              Joel Coen and Ethan Coen                              (No Country for Old Men)            44%   Best Animated Film         Ratatouille                         81%   Best Documentary           Sicko                               37%    Source: Hey! Nielsen   *Includes data collected from Feb. 5 - Feb. 19, 2008     Advertising Trends  

Nielsen Monitor-Plus, the competitive advertising intelligence service of The Nielsen Company, analyzed advertising for the 2007 Academy Awards telecast and found:

   -- Movies nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best      Director spent more than $102 million on advertising during 2007.   -- The last year's event had a total of 24 commercial minutes during the 3      hour and 10 minute televised broadcast on ABC Network, down slightly      from 24 1/2 minutes of advertising in 2006.   -- The cost for a 30-second ad rose slightly from $1.65 million in 2006 to      $1.67 million in 2007.   -- Twenty-seven unique brands aired a total of 38 national advertisements      in the 2007 broadcast.     Advertising Spending  

In 2007, movies nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor/Actress, and Best Director spent more than $102 million on advertising in the U.S. Michael Clayton, which was nominated in three of the four categories, spent $27.6 million-more than any other movie, while There Will Be Blood, also nominated in three categories, spent the least: $404,618 (See Table 9).

Spending on movies nominated in the Best Actor category reached $59.4 million in 2007, accounting for almost 60% of total advertising expenditures. In comparison, the movies in the Best Actress category spent only $26.1 million on advertising. Movies nominated for Best Director and Best Picture spent just over $45 million each on advertising.

                       Table 9: Advertising Spending                                                   Jan. 2007 -   Movie                      Nominee             Nov. 2007 $    Best Picture   Michael Clayton            n/a                 $27,566,058   No Country for Old Men     n/a                 $15,803,659   Atonement                  n/a                  $1,069,970   Juno                       n/a                    $695,846   There Will Be Blood        n/a                    $404,618    Best Actor   Michael Clayton            George Clooney      $27,566,058   Eastern Promises           Viggo Mortensen     $15,193,993   In the Valley of Elah      Tommy Lee Jones     $11,823,644   Sweeney Todd               Johnny Depp          $4,422,039   There Will Be Blood        Daniel Day-Lewis       $404,618    Best Actress   Elizabeth: The Golden Age  Cate Blanchett      $20,908,766   La Vie En Rose             Marion Cotillard     $2,104,227   Away From Her              Julie Christie       $1,392,853   The Savages                Laura Linney           $970,855   Juno                       Ellen Page             $695,846    Best Director   Michael Clayton            Tony Gilroy         $27,566,058   No Country for Old Men     Joel Coen and                               Ethan Coen         $15,803,659   Juno                       Jason Reitman          $695,846   The Diving Bell and     the Butterfly            Julian Schnabel        $531,715   There Will Be Blood        Paul Thomas Anderson   $404,618    Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus     Commercial Minutes  

Over the past five years, the number of commercial minutes in the Academy Awards telecasts ballooned from 24 minutes in 2003 to a high of 27 1/2 minutes in 2005 (See Table 10). By 2007, that number had shrunk back to 24 minutes -- the same commercial duration as in 2003.

                        Table 10: Commercial Minutes                     Year    Commercial Duration (Minutes:Seconds)                    2007             24:00                    2006             24:30                    2005             27:30                    2004             27:00                    2003             24:00    Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus   Note: Commercial Minutes exclude promotional announcements     Average Cost for a 30-Second Commercial  

The average cost for a 30-second commercial has increased 23% over the past five years-from $1.35 million in 2003 to $1.67 million in 2007 (See Table 11). Total advertising expenditures decreased slightly last year, from $80.7 million in 2006 to $79.9 million in 2007.

              Table 11: Average Cost Per 30-Second Commercial    Academy Award      Average Cost Per       Year           30-Second Commercial           Best Picture Winner        2007             $1,665,800                   The Departed       2006             $1,646,800                   Crash       2005             $1,503,000                   Million Dollar Baby       2004             $1,503,100                   Lord of the Rings:                                                       Return of the King       2003             $1,345,800                   Chicago       2002             $1,290,000                   A Beautiful Mind       2001             $1,450,000                   Gladiator       2000             $1,305,000                   American Beauty       1999             $1,000,000                   Shakespeare in Love       1998               $950,000                   Titanic       1997               $850,000                   The English Patient       1996               $795,000                   Braveheart       1995               $700,000                   Forrest Gump       1994               $643,500                   Schindler's List       1993               $607,800                   Unforgiven    Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus     Top Advertisers During the 2007 Telecast  

For the second consecutive year, General Motors was the top advertiser, with 3 1/2 minutes of commercial time -- 30 seconds less than it aired when it claimed the top advertising slot during the 2006 Academy Awards telecast. Coca-Cola, L'Oreal, and J.C. Penney rounded out the top four advertisers for the 2007 telecast (See Table 12).

These four companies have held the top Oscars advertising slots since 2006. Coca-Cola replaced Pepsi-Cola as the leading soft drink advertiser beginning in 2006, and L'Oreal became a major Academy Awards advertiser in 2005.

                       Table 12: 2007 Top Advertisers                    Advertiser            Commercial Time (Seconds)                General Motors Corp.             210               Coca-Cola Company                180               L'Oreal                          180               J.C. Penney                      150    Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus     2007 Advertisers: Old and New  

Beyond last year's top four, McDonald's, which aired two commercials during the 2007 event, and American Express, which aired a 120-second spot that was the longest running commercial of the telecast, hold the distinction of being the only two companies that have advertised during the last 14 Academy Awards telecasts.

There were also several notable, new advertisers last year. Apple previewed its iPhone with three 30-second spots, and Unilever aired a 60- second Dove Cream Body Wash spot created by the winner of a contest that asked women to create commercials for Unilever's new Dove product.

Viewing the Commercials

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

Commercials from this year's Academy Awards will be posted on Tuesday, February 26, 2008.

THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF AN ACADEMY AWARD VIEWER

According to data from Spectra, a Nielsen marketing service that measures lifestyle behaviors of American consumers, almost 60% of Academy Awards viewers are women. Among this group, most were at least 35 years old, college educated with incomes of at least $75,000 per year, and living in the New England, Mid-Atlantic, or Pacific regions of the U.S.

In general, these viewers live in upscale suburban areas or major urban centers (40%) and are either live in large families with older children (age 6 and older), or are older couples (age 35 and older) with no children. Academy Award viewers also tend to be health conscious consumers of wine, nuts, pretzels, yogurt, liquor, health bars, trail mix, coffee, pudding and popcorn.

Additional data from Claritas, Nielsen's marketing research unit, indicates that Academy Awards viewers are predominantly in upper to upper- middle income brackets. These "upper crust" viewers are twice as likely to watch the show. Conversely, people in lower to lower-middle income categories-for examples, downscale retirees-are half as likely to watch the Oscars telecast.

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: Nielsen EDI: Anne Saini, +1-646-654-8691; Nielsen Online: Suzy
Bausch +1-408-941-2965, or Sandra Parrelli, +1-646-654-7772; Nielsen Monitor-
Plus: Jamillah Wright, +1-646-654-8357; Nielsen SoundScan: Anna Loynes,
+1-213-639-6167; Nielsen BookScan: Whitney Jacoby, +1-914-684-5505; Nielsen
Media Research: Anne Saini, +1-646-654-8691; Claritas: Steve Moore,
+1-858-677-9634; Spectra: Jennifer Frighetto, +1-847-605-5686

Web site: http://www.nielsen.com/
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Profile: International Entertainment