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Every year the Oscars offer up a bevy of celebrities draped in luxe cloth and dripping with diamonds. At the biggest gathering Hollywood has to offer, all the stars glitter, and viewers tune in en masse to find out who will end up with the gold.

This year, however, signalled a bigger appetite than usual for the Academy Awards. In the U.S., ABC logged the highest viewership for the awards show in five years, and a nearly 12 per cent bump over last year.

In Canada, the gains are harder to measure. The television ratings system changed between this year's ceremony and the last, meaning Canadian ratings compared to last year are apples and oranges. But even with the discrepancy, the Oscars were up on both sides of the border.



"I like these numbers," said Susanne Boyce, president of creative content and channels at CTV, which broadcast the big show. "Event television very much galvanizes a country … There's a buzz, there's an excitement."

That buzz extends beyond Oscars. The Golden Globes, the Grammys and the Super Bowl all logged bigger audiences in the States and Canada this year than last year.

The consortium of CTVglobemedia and Rogers Media managed to pull in impressive ratings for their broadcasts of the Vancouver Olympics, including on the CTV conventional network.

"Most shows one can record on PVR. But if there's an experience you want to have, you'll come to that same appointment viewing" to enjoy the live event, Ms. Boyce said.

But aside from event television, appointment viewing isn't what it used to be. Audiences fragmented by the wide selection of cable channels and the Web simply don't tune in en masse at a set time to watch the same hit sitcom any more.

Ironically, some of the technology that has fragmented audiences and made business tougher for the networks can also drive ratings when it comes to an awards show or prime sports event. Walter Levitt, chief marketing officer for CanWest Broadcasting, was on Twitter when the Grammys were on CanWest's Global network, and saw discussions of the show as it happened.

"There's no doubt that social media is playing a part as a reminder tool for events on broadcast television," he said. "And last night, if you were online ... it would have been difficult to miss the fact that the Oscars were on."

With so many eyeballs glued in one place, events pique advertisers' interest too.

"They're fantastic. Advertisers consider them the crown jewels in a video portfolio," said Sunni Boot, CEO of advertising company ZenithOptimedia. "They reach both heavy and light TV viewers, they cover many different demographic bases. … It's such large viewing, almost any product or service can go in there."

That reach, and the one-size-fits-all ad platform, comes with high prices, she said, and clients are willing to pay for premium space for their messages, especially at the Oscars.

"This is the Rolls Royce of awards shows," Ms. Boot said.

After a recession that choked ad budgets, media companies that rely on those revenues are facing the prospect of a slow recovery. TVA Group, Quebec's largest private broadcaster, reported a fourth-quarter rise in profit at its TV division Monday, helped along by cost cutting, subsidies and the performance of its specialty channels. But advertising grew by only 1 per cent from last year. President Pierre Dion said the possibility for growth in ad revenue is "severely limited."

In that kind of environment, anything that attracts ad dollars is worth plenty to the networks, which have the nationwide reach that makes a perfect fit for event television.

"The economics of the big shows tend to be such that you need the platform of broadcast TV [that reaches]the country to make it a success," Mr. Levitt said.

But despite the nice push an event can give ratings, the bread and butter of network television is still weekly shows, Mr. Levitt said. In an age where specialty channels and Internet offerings take audiences away from the networks, the slices are getting smaller and the spread is thinning. To remain viable, networks need more regularly scheduled broadcasts to pull in viewers.

The challenge for the conventional television business is to make every week feel like an event.

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