Here's another thing: I personally think the entire Academy Awards are a joke - not just the ceremony itself but the films that are often picked as winners. But here's the thing: as far as I can tell, most people don't: most people seem to still hold the Oscars in extremely high esteem. If your film has won an academy award, it's still slapped all over the place in marketing, in reviews all the way down to regular folk talking chaf. "Hey did you see that film last week? It won Best Picture, so I wanna check it out."
So regardless of what I think, the Academy Awards actually aren't irrelevant at all, even if the ceremony itself isn't getting good ratings. Which tells me it's not a sinking ship - they just have to recalibrate how they're presenting these things. Taking emphasis and esteem away from the awards themselves but keeping all the rest of the self-congratulatory crap is the worst fucking thing you could do in this regard. Strip it back, change the entire tone and format if necessary. Put it on twitch and YouTube if it needs a new platform to bring in viewers. But don't reduce the actual prestige of winning an academy award. It's literally what you're hanging onto and it still exists in the public consciousness.
