Two Wall Street Journal reporters spent a lot of time watching Oscars telecasts to figure out why the show always, always runs long. The results are kind of fascinating. One standout stat is that viewers will spend 24 minutes watching people walkthat is, the time spent from when the winning name is called to when the winner begins speaking. By contrast, only about 4 minutes of a typical telecast is spent on the opening of envelopes and the announcement of winners. The seven-category breakdown: Film clips, visual packages: 37.6 minutes Speeches: 29.7 minutes Host speaking: 25.5 minutes Walking: 24.3 minutes Intros, banter: 24.3 minutes Songs: 13.8 minutes Opening envelopes: 4.2 minutes
Here’s the complete story from Newser.