Saturday night was the fifth annual Academy Gala, the glamorous fundraising event that also serves as a de facto soft launch of Oscar season. At the Academy Museum cocktail party preceding it, the awards circuit still had its new-car smell; everyone seemed a little more excited to slip into their tuxedos and gravity-defying gowns (or, in the case of Kim Kardashian, a head-encompassing beige silk scarf).
This year’s event also carried an element of nostalgia. Whether it’s film festivals, conferences, or awards shows, all circuits are Groundhog Days where participants may get annoyed by repetition but are ultimately won over by community and familiarity. Same as it ever was — only now, when LA production continues to drop and jobs are scarce everywhere, it’s not.
The Academy knows it, too. It selected Amelia Dimoldenberg, creator of YouTube’s “Chicken Shop Date,” as the night’s emcee for the Academy’s social interviews, where she spoke with the likes of Quinta Brunson, Charli XCX, Rachel Zegler, Jeff Goldblum, Jesse Eisenberg, and Anna Kendrick. She did a great job, tweaking the celebrities — some of whom have been on her YouTube show, or want to be. It’s become a must-stop for promotional tours.
Oddly, none of the Academy’s Instagram or YouTube posts from the evening utilized Dimoldenberg as a collaborator. (Across platforms, Dimoldenberg has over 5 million subscribers — equal to the Academy.) Whether oversight or strategy, it reflects a dilemma facing Hollywood now. Everyone knows that change isn’t just coming, it’s here, but there’s real confusion (or denial) in acting on it.
I sought some clarity from Ben Woods, an analyst at entertainment research firm MIDiA and an author of its recent report, “The New Hollywood.” Among the findings: If you’re younger than 34, broadcast is a distant third to social and streaming. Even in the oldest cohort (those 65 and older), broadcast barely holds the majority at 55 percent. (It’s currently unclear if the 2026 Oscars will be available on streaming; this year, it streamed on Hulu.)
The report also offered a strategic playbook for traditional media, but it’s not what anyone at the Academy cocktail would want to hear. Recommendations include hiring digital natives, lean production cycles (citing Dhar Mann’s $1,000 per minute), repackaging back catalogs into multiple FAST or social channels, and adapting to vertical, scrolling content. Bottom line: Traditional players must adopt creator-driven, social-first strategies or risk irrelevance.
At an evening honoring Oscar contenders and their stars, like “Jay Kelly” (George Clooney, Adam Sandler, and Laura Dern), “Sentimental Value” (Elle Fanning, Renate Reinsve, and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), and “Deliver Me from Nowhere” (Jeremy Allen White, Scott Cooper, Jeremy Strong, and Bruce Springsteen), social cutdowns weren’t top of mind — but they may be the format in which (parts) of these films are most widely seen.
Woods knows his report doesn’t necessarily deliver a popular message. He often gets variations on this question: With a hazy monetization strategy, exactly why should companies do this? The answer, so much as there is one, is don’t kill the messenger.
“Is it better to be able to offer [brands] that holistic message whereby you can say, ‘We can reach audiences — our classic audiences through our broadcast channels, through our streaming channels, and also by the way, we manage the relationship for all of the social audiences and we know exactly what they look like and how they differ?’ I think that’s a powerful message that you’re going to want to try and control rather than not,” Woods said.
And if you don’t — well, nature hates a vacuum. “If you don’t embrace it, you’re going to see situations which we’re already seeing whereby brands are going direct to consumers with entertainment content, whether that’s Dick’s Sporting Goods, whether that’s the Waitrose supermarket in the UK with its really popular video podcasts, whether that’s the Tinder dating app creating a reality TV series akin to ‘Love Island,’” he said. “I think the creator economy has created a license to entertain for anyone.”
No one would equate a supermarket podcast with an Oscar contender, but that’s also beside the point.
A supermarket podcast or dating-app reality series doesn’t belong in the same conversation as Clooney or Springsteen. And the Academy Gala has stolen bragging rights from the Academy’s own Governors Awards as the season’s first must-attend event.
It was also proof that the industry can’t believe tradition is enough. Will Hollywood be able to embrace the creator economy and keep its place at the center of culture — or will the next generation of audiences decide that center lies somewhere else?
