Oscars

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By SARA FISHER

Staff Reporter

With the Super Bowl a faded memory, office pool junkies are turning their attention to the Academy Awards. But instead of guessing wildly at who will win in the short-documentary category this year, why not hit the Internet for some guidance?

That’s what Mike Rayner plans to do.

“What do I know about some of the categories?” said the 32-year-old money management consultant, who lives in West Los Angeles. “I hit a couple of Web sites last year to see what the expert picks were. As it turned out, I didn’t win the pool, but I came a lot closer than I could have by myself. This (time), I’ll cross my fingers as well.”

Rayner is not alone, and the executives of entertainment Web sites love it.

Between the time the Academy Award nominees are announced on Feb. 10 and the March 23 ceremony, Oscar coverage springs up across the Web. Entertainment industry mainstays such as Entertainment Weekly, E! Entertainment and The Hollywood Reporter are putting on bigger and better online shows to attract both viewers and advertisers.

For most of these sites, this is only their second year of existence. But after executives saw a large increase in site traffic during the Oscar period last year, they figured they could not only charge premium online ad rates, they could also retain some of the Oscar-period viewers as long-term followers. And that could boost ad revenues, because online ad rates, like their counterparts in other media, are pegged to audience size.

Consequently, editors of online publications have good reason to expect that this year’s venture will be a money-making opportunity.

This year’s online Oscar offerings are far more elaborate than last year’s. They’re not just recitations of Las Vegas odds or Siskel and Ebert’s top picks, although those are available online. The entertainment news sites vie to provide more Oscar-related information than even the most ardent fan could ever want.

In addition to complete lists of nominees (often in a printer-ready format convenient for pools), the Web sites offer everything from expert picks on who will take home an Oscar to interactive viewer polls to historical information on both the Oscars and the nominees.

“This is one of the biggest events we put on during the year,” said Lew Harris, editor-in-chief of E! Online. “We’re working at presenting a combination of news for the serious Oscar follower and irreverent fun.”

Michael Small, editor of Entertainment Weekly Online, echoes Harris.

“We’ve expanded our coverage and we’re coming at it from as many angles as possible,” he said. “Our Web site has changed so much since last year’s Oscar coverage. This is absolutely one of our biggest undertakings.”

Most of the Oscar sites feature interactive polls. The general public gets to weigh in with their predictions of winners, and a running tally shows which nominee is the popular favorite. (As of last week, “Titanic” was well ahead in the balloting.)

Several of these interactive polls are set up as contests, with the person correctly guessing the most winners receiving a nominal prize, such as a movie poster.

“Our viewers choice poll is incredibly popular,” Small said. “People want to voice their opinions, and that is what the Internet’s interactive element is all about. And boy, do people have strong opinions about who will and who should win.”

In the name of pure entertainment and to keep browsers at a site for as long as possible a couple of online publications are offering games. In the same vein as the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game, Hollywood Online offers “Six Degrees of Nominees.” Players are challenged to guess the pathway between a pair of Oscar nominees.

E! Online boasts the more irreverent “Sink the Titanic.” Players become Steven Spielberg, whose “Amistad” was overlooked in the nominations. The point of the game is to sink the Titanic and knock off “Titanic” cast members by firing cannonballs.

These Oscar Web sites may seem like fun and games on the surface, but behind them is serious business. These projects are expensive undertakings, with some companies estimating that over 1,000 man-hours went into developing their sites. Yet the sections also can be profitable.

An advertising industry dictum suggests that the bigger the audience, the more valuable the advertisement. Consequently, many online publications hike their ad rates in the weeks leading up to the Oscars, or offer sponsorship opportunities.

“Advertisers find Oscar coverage very attractive because they know that the pool (of viewers) is large,” said Stuart Halperin, co-founder of Hollywood Online. “We’re selling sponsorships at a premium.”

Sponsorships are a popular means to finance the site. E! Online’s Oscar coverage is sponsored by Sun MicroSystems Inc. for an undisclosed amount. E! will announce a second sponsor within the next two weeks, according to Vice President of Advertising Jon Slavet.

Entertainment Weekly also expects to announce a major sponsorship agreement within the next couple of weeks.

“I can’t give any details at this time, but the sponsorship will be in the seven-figure range,” said Graham Cannon, director of marketing for new media at Time Inc, which owns Entertainment Weekly.

Cannon said Entertainment Weekly Online is selling banner ads, in addition to sponsorship for the Oscar section of its site. The rates for those banner ads are higher than for ads elsewhere on the site.

“This site is heavily promoted and heavily trafficked,” he explained.

Executives at the online publications expect a trickle-down effect from the spike in Web site viewership leading up to the Oscars. They believe that after stumbling onto their sites, a percentage of new visitors will become loyal.

“If we get people to the site once for the Oscar coverage, we can get them back,” said Entertainment Weekly Online’s Small.

“We do expect to attract an increasingly wide viewership on top of our loyal audience because of this event,” E! Online’s Slavet said. “We saw it happen last year to some extent, and this year, our coverage is even more extensive. We have 1.8 million users every month, and our site traffic jumps massively during the Oscar period.”

Since this is only the second year for most of the special Oscar sites on the Web, executives say they are unable to quantify site traffic increases either during the Oscar period or during the subsequent months.

So what does the Academy which runs the official Oscar site think about the crop of sites giving advice to people participating in illegal betting pools?

“They may be doing stuff we wouldn’t do as the Academy, but it all generates more coverage and exposure that works to our benefit,” said Ric Robertson, executive administrator of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “No matter what, it’s good publicity for the broadcast.”

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