Remember the days when everyone watched the Oscars and Grammys? The television would be on at 8pm sharp to catch the beginning of the show while I sat with my mom, dad, and sister on the couch. Like most shows before streaming and the popularized use of social media, it felt like these award shows had meaning! See the most famous people in the world, watch great performances, sit at the edge of your seat to watch someone win Best Rap Album (this year was Tyler, The Creator) or Best Documentary (this year was Questlove). What happened? Why are these shows losing viewership and why are they generally disliked?
I think the reason is social media. Platforms like Twitter can keep you updated on the award show without you even watching. We live in an age where soundbites, short videos, notifications, and small, fast pieces of information drive news for the average person.
For example, my friend Alec texted me last night around 10:30 pm asking me if I saw the singing duo Silk Sonic accept their award at the Grammys. They had such funny speech he said. My response was, “That’s awesome that they won, I love Anderson .Paak, I was just going to catch up on Twitter tomorrow morning so I can catch up on the things I wanted to see.” It’s the fastest way for me to sift through the content I want to see. I know it’s not the Grammy experience, but it does allow me to keep up with pop culture and see my favorite artist’s speeches if I choose to. According to a study conducted by HubSpot, the average length of a Twitter video should be about 45 seconds because we only last around 43 of those seconds. It’s hard to get people’s attention when our average attention span is only 8 seconds!
I wonder if these award shows will ever change their format. If you look at the chart below, it shows the average Grammy viewership over the years. Does it make sense to broadcast the event on social media, catering to a larger audience? Does it make sense to break the show up into small clips and post them online, doing away with the televised show?
Over the years, social media sites and streaming options has forced cable television to rethink its strategy. Will awards shows be the next to change their viewing structure?
References
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-long-should-videos-be-on-instagram-twitter-facebook-youtube
U Penn Social Book 
Spot on. Time is collapsing and social media allows us to collapse it even more. The TLDR acronym, (Too Long, Didn’t Read), goes for lots more than just wordy emails. Great post.