Charlie Keil

Thanks for having me.

Okay, well, there's a couple of, I guess, frontline aspects of it.

The first is that they're leaving the network with which they've had a relationship for decades.

I think it's something like five decades.

So this is a major change in an ongoing relationship.

The other is that they're abandoning network television generally, as you said, for YouTube.

And then the question would be why?

Why is YouTube preferable from the eyes of the Academy, from the safe home they've had for so many years?

I think that you have to look at a deal like this from the perspective of both parties, like what's in it for the Oscars and what's in it for YouTube.

So for the Oscars, I think they've seen declining ratings over the last number of years.

They had a high of something like 58 million, if you can imagine, viewers during the Titanic year.

And it's been a steady decline and become more rapidly evident as it has with other award show over the last post-COVID period.

So they need to goose their numbers.

They need to find a way to reach more people more consistently.

And I think many listeners would probably say, like, I don't necessarily watch the Oscars.

I watch the clips.

And where do you watch them?

On YouTube.

Guilty as charged.

Yeah.