Business
Forget the celebrities. Meet L.A.'s small businesses that depend on the Oscars
For more than 20 years, Sherman Oaks florist Mark’s Garden has designed the towering greenery and blooming displays seen at the Oscars.
Getting that Hollywood awards-season work is key, particularly during the business’ typically slow first quarter of the year. And the free advertising that comes with your floral arrangements gracing the year’s biggest stage? Priceless.
“People love being associated with the florist that designs for the Oscars,” owner Michael Uncapher said. “It has shaped our reputation in a way no marketing campaign ever could.”
A report commissioned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences estimated that the economic effect of last year’s Oscars and related events was $134 million in Los Angeles County, when using conservative estimates for visitor counts, average hotel rates and personal spending.
Last year, the nonprofit reported that its “Academy Awards and related activities” brought in about $147 million in revenue, which includes the nonprofit’s TV licensing deal with Walt Disney Co.’s ABC.
But despite long-term pressure on the event’s TV ratings, the Oscars remain an important driver of business for local companies.
Scores of small businesses — including Mark’s Garden, limo and car services, hotels, stylists, restaurants, caterers, security companies, designers and jewelers — make money from Oscars week, the related activities and events and the show itself, which airs Sunday.
Beyond small businesses, broadcast network ABC also stands to benefit from airing the show — in 2020, a 30-second ad during the telecast cost $2.15 million, on average, according to marketing data firm Kantar. Total ad revenue for that year was about $150 million.
“It is really a huge operation,” said David Offenberg, an associate professor of entertainment finance at Loyola Marymount University. “It’s not just the people onstage, but so many people behind the scenes.”
A floral installation at the 2024 Oscars. Mark’s Garden owner Michael Uncapher said his business’ association with the awards show “has shaped our reputation in a way no marketing campaign ever could.”
(Michael Uncapher)
Last year’s show on ABC an average of 19.5 million viewers, up 4% from 2023, according to Nielsen data. Viewer interest in the Oscars that year was piqued by the best picture face-off between theatrical blockbuster nominees “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie,” along with a highly anticipated performance of the song “I’m Just Ken” by star Ryan Gosling.
The 2024 telecast marked the third consecutive time the Oscars saw viewership growth after an all-time audience low of 10.5 million in 2021. But it still paled in comparison with the 30 million people who once tuned in to watch the awards show. Oscar pundits have worried about ratings for this year’s telecast because so many of the best picture front-runners are relatively obscure.
But as television viewing habits have changed, so should the metric for success for the Oscars, academy Chief Executive Bill Kramer said.
This year, the show will be streamed live on Hulu for the first time, and it has garnered an increasingly international audience in 200 markets around the world. The academy also said its social media presence has increased.
Flowers from Mark’s Garden adorn the Academy Awards. Owner Michael Uncapher says the exposure his business gets on the biggest stage of the year is priceless.
(Michael Uncapher)
“Of course, night-of ratings on broadcast television have traditionally been how we’ve defined our success in the U.S., but we reach people in so many different ways,” Kramer said. “We really have to think about our reach in a variety of ways.”
On the ground in Hollywood, more than 1,000 production workers have been at work, creating sets for the show, working on lighting and installing the red carpet, he said.
Speaking on Zoom this week from a hotel room at Ovation Hollywood, Kramer said the show not only supports these direct workers and the businesses that economically benefit from the show’s presence in L.A. but also the entertainment industry as a whole.
That was an important consideration for the academy as it considered how to steer the glitzy awards show in the aftermath of the recent fires in Southern California.
Though there were calls to cancel or not broadcast the Oscars from people including “Hacks” star Jean Smart, Kramer said the academy decided to move forward after consultation with its board of governors, academy members and city leaders. (The academy did delay its nomination announcement and rescheduled other related events.)
“There’s a huge business impact to our industry,” said Kramer, who has led the academy since 2022. “This is an industry that’s had a complex several years with COVID and the strikes, so we thought it was really important to keep a positive energy surrounding the Oscars and our industry.”
Keeping the Oscars on track was especially important to Uncapher of Mark’s Garden, particularly because many of his January events were canceled due to the Palisades and Eaton fires. He’s also recovering from an arson attack on his business two years ago that left him operating out of a pop-up until later this year, he said.
“We have to continue on and keep the economy moving,” Uncapher said.
The Oscars represent a stable and predictable source of revenue for marketing firm Distinctive Assets, which makes swag bags for the nominees for the acting and directing awards.
The Miracle Mile-based company, which connects brands with celebrities, has put together its “Everyone Wins” bags for 23 years.
This year, the gift bags are filled with products and offers from 61 brands and include a four-night stay at resorts in the Maldives, cosmetics and hair care products from L’Oreal and 10 one-year subscriptions to a disaster recovery support firm that can be gifted to anyone.
The bags are not affiliated with the Oscars or the academy and are delivered to nominees well before the telecast airs. Company founder Lash Fary declined to disclose revenue information but said this promotion is on target and perhaps slightly above average for what he’d want to make from any promotion he does.
The “Everyone Wins” gift bag is one of two big events Distinctive Assets works in the first quarter. The other is the Grammys.
“This is the Super Bowl of awards shows, at least from a film perspective,” Fary said. “That’s what the brands are looking to be part of.”
In the past, actor Viola Davis has shown up at the resort gifted to her, and director Ron Howard hosted his son’s wedding at a resort advertised in the bag. Amy Adams was once photographed in a T-shirt from the “Everyone Wins” package while walking to the gym.
It’s these kind of celebrity associations that brands pay for, Fary said, that “instant cachet that Oscar week has.”
Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs in its operations division, mostly from its technology department, the company said Thursday.
In a note to employees, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the chief operating officer of Nike, said that management was nearly done reorganizing the business for its turnaround plan, and that the goal was to operate with “more speed, simplicity and precision.”
“This is not a new direction,” Mr. Alagirisamy told employees. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”
Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, is trying to recover after missteps led to a prolonged sales slump, in which the brand leaned into lifestyle products and away from performance shoes and apparel. Elliott Hill, the chief executive, has worked to realign the company around sports and speed up product development to create more breakthrough innovations.
In March, Nike told investors that it expected sales to fall this year, with growth in North America offset by poor performance in Asia, where the brand is struggling to rejuvenate sales in China. Executives said at the time that more volatility brought on by the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices might continue to affect its business.
The reorganization has involved cuts across many parts of the organization, including at its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Nike slashed some corporate staff last year and eliminated nearly 800 jobs at distribution centers in January.
“You never want to have to go through any sort of layoffs, but to re-center the company, we’re doing some of that,” Mr. Hill said in an interview earlier this year.
Mr. Alagirisamy told employees that Nike was reshaping its technology team and centering employees at its headquarters and a tech center in Bengaluru, India. The layoffs will affect workers across North America, Europe and Asia.
The cuts will also affect staffing in Nike’s factories for Air, the company’s proprietary cushioning system. Employees who work on the supply chain for raw materials will also experience changes as staff is integrated into footwear and apparel teams.
Nike’s Converse brand, which has struggled for years to revive sales, will move some of its engineering resources closer to the factories they support, the company said.
Mr. Alagirisamy said the moves were necessary to optimize Nike’s supply chain, deploy technology faster and bolster relationships with suppliers.
A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.
The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.
The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.
The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.
It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.
However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.
Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.
Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.
“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.
In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”
The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.
“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.
Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.
Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.
Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.
The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.
But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.
Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.
A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.
“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .
Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.
Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.
Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.
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Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.
But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.
While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.
“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.
It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”
Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.
“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.
The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.
Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.
Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”
Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.
Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.
“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”
For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.
“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”
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