These are the biggest lessons we learnt from the 2020 awards season

Even with an impressive roster of celebrities and performances, many of the major ceremonies struggled to remain relevant – but it was a different story for online coverage, says Roisin O'Connor

Dave won album of the year at this week’s Brit awards – and had a few choice words for the prime minister (AFP/Getty)

January and February may be quiet for most, but for culture desks around the world it’s one of the busiest times.

From the Grammys to the Academy awards, there’s been a lot to take in as these events come under increasing pressure to remain relevant. We saw the Baftas come under fire for failing to acknowledge women in film. The Brit award nominations looked just as woeful, with only four female artists nominated compared with 26 male in the gender-neutral categories. But there were positive firsts, too.

The team working overnight on the Oscars were cheering as Parasite became the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture. Billie Eilish sweeping all four major categories at the Grammys seemed to be a much-needed recognition of how a new generation of artists is changing the way we hear and consume music.

This year was a pivotal moment for awards shows. As Ricky Gervais hosted his fifth and final Golden Globes, the Oscars once again went without a host, instead choosing to reel out a number of star presenters including Kirstin Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Will Ferrell. The latter failed to reel in much of a TV audience, and “just” 23.6 million viewers, down 20 per cent on the previous year. The Globes also hit an eight-year low, suggesting that even a host as notorious as Gervais had become passé.

Even the Brits, with its impressive roster of live performances from artists such as Billie Eilish, Stormzy, Dave and Lizzo, only managed 3.8 million (down on 2019’s 4.1 million). What does this mean for The Independent? Strangely, the culture desk managed to increase its audience during coverage of each awards compared with the previous year.

Perhaps it means people are more inclined to follow online coverage than passively watch the ceremony on TV. It’s probably more to do with the way we adapt and plan, with rather military precision, exactly how to cover each ceremony, whether it’s a comment piece on a moment some might view as insignificant, or the lively tone we use in our liveblogs.

What does become tedious, at least for us, is having to write about how each year awards shows fail to properly represent the full scale of diversity in the arts. We’re hoping the message sinks in in time for 2021.

Yours

Roisin O’Connor

Music correspondent