What Media Sites Need To Deliver An Oscar-Worthy Performance

When news sites began ramping up their coverage of the 97^th annual Academy Awards this past weekend, the focus was inevitably on who won. This not only includes the people who walked away with an Oscar: media organizations were also waiting to see who won the competition for the audience’s attention.

Last year a survey of U.S. adults found 32% said they always or occasionally watch the Academy Awards broadcast. This was borne out by data that showed ratings hit a four-year high for the 2024 Oscars ceremony. That creates a lot of opportunity for media organizations that want to capitalize on the interest before, after, and even during the live event each year. 

Publishers often approach the Oscars with lots of up-front coverage about the predictions for key categories like Best Picture, and in the days that follow there are countless articles detailing  all the jokes, antics, and surprises that happened on stage. Viewers may also be complementing their time watching the Oscars on TV by looking at sites running liveblog commentary and additional photos and images of highlights as they happen.

One of the big problems is that news sites aren’t just competing with each other during high-traffic events like the Oscars. They’re also vying for attention among countless everyday viewers and creators on social media who are offering commentary of their own. 

The solution isn’t just throwing more editors and reporters on Oscar-related stories. It’s often about bringing on new or better platforms and tools. Many publishers start down this path but end up in due diligence limbo, where uncertainty prevents them from taking the next step. 

This is where taking a cue from the movies being celebrated might help. The films that won at the Academy Awards pay careful attention to three critical areas to create something so powerful that audiences can’t help but be drawn in. Get these right and your due diligence should be done. 

Take a seat in an imaginary director’s chair for a minute and ask yourself how well you’re thought through:

1. The production plan

A screenplay may outline the basic story a film will tell, but bringing it to the silver screen takes much more strategic thinking and preparation.

Production plans will incorporate the locations for field shoots, cast schedules, and even the food provided through craft services. Experienced filmmakers will draw upon their insider knowledge of what’s required to pull it all off, but media organizations need something deeper than that.

Instead of rushing into a high-traffic event like the Oscars with an intent to cover it as thoroughly as possible, a more solid plan should be built off analytics data that shows how your content is performing.

It’s not just about looking at which content, if any, went viral in the past. You should be studying how much time people are spending with content and how often they click deeper into your publication.

Think of it this way: the Oscars are more than a potential source of traffic. It’s also a chance to convert more casual visitors into loyal readers, and even paid subscribers. Looking at news coverage as a contributor to your audience development strategy, especially amid pop culture moments like the Academy Awards, can pay long-term dividends.

Unlike actors in a film, analytics doesn’t always give you a script to follow so much as a guideline for how to adapt the way you tell stories and grow your media business.

2. The cast and crew

There’s a reason Oscars speeches tend to go long: besides their families and friends, actors recognize they have a lot of people to thank for the films in which they appear.

Line producers, directors of photography, grips, assistant directors and many others are required to help the talent we see on screen shine. Even when they’re working within budget constraints, smart directors make sure they can bring on those with speciality skills as required, especially special effects crews and stuntpeople for the most dramatic scenes.

Yes, it’s the reporters who go out and get the biggest Oscars scoops, and editors who make sure they reach the audience as quickly as possible. But performing at your best as a newsroom could mean adopting new tools or using them differently.

Lisa McCann, Head of Project Management at Big Bite, said partnering with experts and auditing your current workflow is one of the biggest priorities for newsrooms in 2025.

“It’s easy to kind of just go with the flow and allow things to escalate into inefficiencies,” she said during a recent WordPress VIP webinar. “Figure out how long it takes to get the article from story plan through to published. Use that as a benchmark and see what it takes to improve on that.”

3. The equipment

Let’s be real: many of us get up and grab more snacks when Oscar categories like lighting, sound editing and makeup are presented. Yet we know we need those people, and all the equipment they work with, in order to experience what becomes an Academy Award-winning film.

For filmmakers the list of equipment not only includes cameras and soundboards but reflectors, boom mics, and much more. It’s a mix of gear that is pretty complex to coordinate and manage over the course of production. No matter how many pieces of equipment are involved, though, the crew should be able to quickly set up and run a shoot, even if the scope of the film expands.

That speed and scalability is equally important in publishing, where even the Oscars can bring surprises in terms of site visits and engagement. It takes a CMS designed to support media companies to make sure pages load properly and that everything remains stable, and tools that encourage audiences to stay on site.

Slate, for example, is the kind of site whose coverage touches not only on events like the Academy Awards but politics, business, technology, life, and culture. As the publication continues to build a membership model, however, they realized they need to think beyond simple reach metrics to properly serve its audience.

Using Parse.ly’s API, Slate introduced an infinite scrolling experience that has proven as compelling as being glued to the action of a blockbuster film in a movie theatre. Engaged time per visitor is up 8.5% and the team is now also able to see metrics like returning visitors and social interactions. 

The biggest difference between movies and media, of course, is that a film only has to tell one story well and leave distribution up to others. Publishers are wise to think carefully about which platforms and tools they adopt and migrate, but the pressure to achieve storytelling at scale requires balancing due diligence with taking action. Your tech stack, in other words, needs to be ready for its close-up.