• by Wayne Friedman , March 9, 2023

For this year's ABC’s “95th Academy Awards” event, there have been 1,531 promotional airings -- yielding an estimated 662.7 million impressions so far, about 33% lower than a year ago, according to iSpot.tv.

Total estimated paid ad spend and media value from promotions for this year's "Oscars" is around $5.1 million, with the bulk coming from promo airings on ABC Television network from December 17 - March 8.

One piece of creative this year features Jimmy Kimmel -- as a Air Force recruit of sorts -- riffing off of “Top Gun: Maverick” -- a Best Picture contender -- as he is grilled by his Air Force superiors for his selection as host for this year’s “Oscars”.

ABC’s on-air promos for the entertainment award show this year have been spread across “Good Morning America,” NBA basketball, “American Idol,” “Live with Kelly and Ryan” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live” -- at around 30 million to 38 million impressions each. The attention index score is 96, with 100 ia an average attention score.

For last year’s event over a similar period, ABC gained 1.01 billion impressions coming from 3,167 promo/ad airings, with a total media value from promos/paid spend estimated at $10.5 million -- double that of this year’s event.

Viewers of that “Oscars” telecast witnessed the notorious “slap” actor Will Smith gave to host Chris Rock after Rock made a joke about Smith's wife Jada Pinkett Smith.

The 2022 event posted a 56% increase in viewing to 15.4 million average minute viewers, per Nielsen. The year before, “The Oscars” posted 10.4 million viewers.

Still, the award shows generally have witnessed lower results in the last several years. In February 2020 --- just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic -- the show posted 23.6 million Nielsen-measured viewers.

Last year’s Oscars took in an estimated $160.5 million in national TV advertising revenues, according to iSpot. The biggest Oscar advertisers of a year ago, overall, include Verizon with 7 equivalized 30-second airings; Crypto.com with 9 and Rolex with 4.

Entertainment marketers a year ago included movie studios and streaming platforms from Disney Pixar, Peacock TV, Paramount+, CNN+. Discovery+, Lionsgate Films, and Open Road Films.

Disney-related companies had promo airings from ABC (11 airings), ESPN (1); Disney+(3) and Hulu (7).