Two Wall Street Journal reporters spent a lot of time watching Oscars telecasts to figure out why the show always, always runs long. The results are kind of fascinating. One standout stat is that viewers will spend 24 minutes watching people walk—that is, the time spent from when the winning name is called to when the winner begins speaking. By contrast, only about 4 minutes of a typical telecast is spent on the opening of envelopes and the announcement of winners. The seven-category breakdown:
- Film clips, visual packages: 37.6 minutes
- Speeches: 29.7 minutes
- Host speaking: 25.5 minutes
- Walking: 24.3 minutes
- Intros, banter: 24.3 minutes
- Songs: 13.8 minutes
- Opening envelopes: 4.2 minutes
So could this be the year that the telecast comes in at the scheduled three hours? Nope. Lead producer Donna Gigliotti already has publicly conceded it, per the
Hollywood Reporter. (Especially after the Academy
had to rescind a time-saving proposal because of celebrity backlash.)
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