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Sunday night marked Hulu’s first time airing the Oscars live. But its academy awards debut ended on a chaotic and frustratingly premature note. Hulu’s livestream cut off in the final moments of the show with two major award categories, best actress and best picture, still to be announced because of a scheduling system issue. Those viewing the awards ceremony on Hulu instead saw an error code message that stated the event was over. Viewer outrage, predictably, ensued online. Fans, including those throwing Oscar-viewing parties, eagerly await the final, pivotal moments of the show. Hulu viewers missed Mikey Madison and Anora win the night’s titles for both best actress and best picture in real time. The Hulu stream also had a rough start, with a few users reporting issues logging on to the platform due to another technical problem. For some, that meant missing the shows musical intro performed by Wicked stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. Disney, which has run Hulu since 2019, apologized to viewers. Yesterday evening, we experienced technical and live stream issues on Hulu which impacted some Oscars viewers,” the company wrote in a statement sent to The Associated Press on Monday. We apologize for the experience. Disney added that a full replay of the event is now available on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, the streamers’ bundled offering. That replay includes the final moments of Sunday night’s show. Hulu’s foray into the Oscars arrives as more streaming platforms are betting big on live programming of prominent events from awards shows and pop culture moments, to major sports matchups like the Super Bowl. Hulu’s stumble was not the first among today’s biggest streaming platforms. Netflix users, for example, expressed frustrations with streaming and buffering problems before and during November’s widely-watched, livestream fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. And in 2023, the platform’s Love Is Blind fans also saw a lengthy delay ahead of a reunion special originally set to air live. The Oscars have aired on ABC for decades. While Sunday marked the first time cord cutters could watch through standard Hulu plans, subscribers of the more expensive Hulu Live TV have been able to tune into the awards show in years past. The show has also continued to be available on other services offering live streaming of ABC, such as YouTubeTV, AT&T TV and FuboTV. Wyatte Grantham-Philips, AP business writer AP Writer Beatrice Dupuy contributed to this report.
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At last nights Academy Awards, the standout star proved to be the indie film Anora, which raked in a whopping five awards on a budget of only $6 million. When director Sean Baker took the stage to accept his Oscar for best director, he used the moment to issue a call to action: a plea to the industry to reinvest in movie theaters. Watching a film in the theater with an audience is an experience, Baker told the crowd. We can laugh together, cry together, scream in fright together, perhaps sit in devastated silence together. [. . .] Its a communal experience you simply dont get at home. And right now, the theatergoing experience is under threat. Baker went on to cite the pandemic-era closures of nearly 1,000 screens as a point of concern for filmmakers. His speech reflected a mounting anxiety about Americas shifting movie-viewing landscape, which, five years out from the start of the pandemic, has been majorly altered by the growing convenience of streaming services and shortening attention spans. And, based on this year’s box office numbers, it’s unclear whenand ifthe threat to movie theaters will pass. Box office earnings stagnate in 2024 When the pandemic shuttered movie theaters across the country, fears about the imminent death of the movie theater became ubiquitous. Since then, theaters have somewhat clawed their way back from pandemic-era lows and the wide-reaching impact of 2023s SAG-AFTRA strikes, but they have yet to recover their pre-pandemic stabilityand its seeming increasingly unlikely that they ever will. In 2023, box office earnings reached around $9 billion, their highest peak since the pandemic, but still roughly $2 billion short of pre-pandemic earnings. And, according to data from the global media analytics company Comscore, revenues dropped 3.3% in 2024, down to $8.7 billion. Thats in spite of a fairly strong streak of blockbusters this summer, when films like Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, and Despicable Me 4 helped lure audiences into theaters. In fact, 2024 was the first post-pandemic year when overall revenues didnt improve upon the last. Meanwhile, across the country, many small theaters continue to close as they struggle to regain former audiences. Streaming and social media appease shorter attention spans Now that the dust has mostly settled from the pandemic, theres a pretty clear common denominator for Americans new movie-watching habits: The age of streaming services. Despite major theater companies best efforts to reel customers back in (including with gonzo marketing schemes like elaborate popcorn buckets), plenty of viewers have been won over by the increasing affordability of high-tech home theater systems and access to their most anticipated titles on streaming, all from the comfort of their own couch. Studios are well aware of these trends, and have adjusted their release strategies accordingly. Big players like Universal and Warner Bros. are in an ongoing process of experimenting with shorter theater-to-digital turnarounds, essentially treating the opening weekend as a kind of IPO to gauge whether a quick pivot to premium streaming could save a propertys lackluster box office numbers. Last June, Universal pulled its action flick The Fall Guy from theaters after just 17 days due to below-expected earnings, opting to offer the film on streaming instead. This strategy proved highly successful for the studios R-rated film The Northman, which flopped in theaters but became a major success on streaming. More recently, the Amazon Studios Christmas film Red One struggled at the box office but hit the top spot on Prime Video when it came to streaming. Streaming also allows studios to account for shortening audience attention spans. According to a 2022 study from Morning Consult, younger Americans are showing a preference for shorter forms of entertainment, as platforms like TikTok and Instagram popularize short-form content. In response, streaming services like Hulu and Netflix have started experimenting with recutting old movies into bite-size episodes to capture Gen Z viewers. At last nights Academy Awards, host Conan OBrien succinctly summed up this current state of movie-watching, jokingly referring to the Oscars as the long-form content awards.
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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. When assessing home price momentum, it’s important to monitor active listings and months of supply. If active listings start to rapidly increase as homes remain on the market for longer periods, it may indicate pricing softness or weakness. Conversely, a rapid decline in active listings could suggest a market that is heating up. Generally speaking, local housing markets where active inventory has returned to pre-pandemic levels have experienced softer home price growth (or outright price declines) over the past 30 months. Conversely, local housing markets where active inventory remains far below pre-pandemic levels have, generally speaking, experienced stronger home price growth over the past 30 months. How does inventory look in 2025? It looks likeassuming nothing dramatic changesmost states will see rising active housing inventory this year. National active listings are on the rise (up 27.6% between February 2024 and February 2025). This indicates that homebuyers have gained some leverage in many parts of the country over the past year. Some sellers markets have turned into balanced markets, and more balanced markets have turned into buyers markets. Nationally, were still below pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels (23.1% below February 2019) and some resale markets, in particular big chunks of Midwest and Northeast, still remain tight. Here are the recent historic totals for inventory/active listings in February, according to Realtor.com: February 2017: 1,151,120 February 2018: 1,045,153 February 2019: 1,102,660 February 2020: 928,343 February 2021: 464,919 (overheating during the pandemic housing boom) February 2022: 346,511 (overheating during the pandemic housing boom) February 2023: 579,264 (mortgage rate shock) February 2024: 664,716 February 2025: 847,825 The map below shows the year-over-year percentage change in active housing inventory by state. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r
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