Oscars boost 1: The plot by the organisers to boost TV audiences for the Oscars worked a treat in the US. Instead of having five contenders for best film, there were 10, in the hope that by increasing the catchment of possible viewers among film goers, more people would tune in. They did, the best audience since 2005. Sure it was criticised for being long, indulgent and verging on the silly, but it’s the Oscars and the carping came from the usual collection of TV writers and film critics who don’t attend or are not invited. So the early Nielsen figures show a 14% rise in the size of the US audience to just over 41 million. It also lifted its audience in the key US demographic, the 18-49 viewers by 8%, or five million viewers. So much for the critics. These ratings, however, are not strictly comparable with previous years as Nielsen is using the combined overnight method whereby the ratings track live and recorded/replayed that-night figures.

Oscars boost 2: Helping the audience was the last-minute truce in the brawl between Disney (parent of Oscars broadcaster ABC) and Cablevision in New York. Only hours before the Oscars broadcast started , Disney had pulled The Oscars from Cablevision, which has about 3.1 million subscribers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. That was a dispute over carriage fees for free-to-air networks (Fox and NBC have already won deals from big cable groups). After Cablevision blinked and said it would enter binding arbitration, Disney restored the ABC signal to Cablevision 13 minutes after the broadcast started on the east coast.

Oscars boost 3: US commentators point out that the higher audience for the Oscars (they were up in 2009 on their low in 2008), reflects an interesting trend in the US: audiences have risen for big telecasts and award such as the Golden Globes, the Emmy Awards, Super Bowl (all-time high last month of more than 106 million viewers) and Grammy Awards. All have boosted their telecasters and have come with higher advertising rates. In Australia, awards programs are not really big deal any more. Our music and film awards are dying and probably won’t make it on free-to-air TV this year. For the second year in a row, Nine split its Oscars telecast rather than show it as one long lump from 7.30pm. It showed the awards live from noon and attracted an average 527,000 viewers, and the 9.30pm shortened highlights averaged 701,000. These were on the combined overnight basis of live and recorded/replayed viewing by 2am today.

Quake cost: QBE has put a figure on the possible cost of the Chilean earthquake to the global insurance market: CEO Frank O’Halloran told a London conference overnight that “Chilean earthquake possible market loss up to $US8 billion may have some effect on re-insurance pricing.” QBE is one of the top 10 re-insurers in the world. If that’s the eventual cost (and the range is $US3 billion to $US8 billion) cost to insurers, and up to $US30 billion to Chile as a whole, the quake would rank as a “great natural disaster” according to the biggest re-insurer, Munich Re. The quake is much bigger than anything that happened globally in 2009. Munich Re said last year saw “860 loss events due to natural hazards, the number of catastrophes documented in 2009 exceeded the previous year’s 750 and the 10-year average (770). The overall loss amounted to $US50 billion, with 17 events exceeding the $US1 billionn threshold. The insurance industry incurred losses of $US22 billion.” None were in the “great” category. This year there have been two, the Haiti and Chile quakes.

Shipping news #1: Suez Canal revenues dropped eased 1.6% in January to $US383.6 million, compared with $US389.7 million dollars in December. But that was up 15% on January 2009, when shipping movements were falling as world trade plunged. The Egyptian Government said the number of vessels transiting the canal dropped 2.3% to 1418 in January from 1452 in December. But January’s figure was up 8% from a year earlier, a sign that world trade is on the way back as the head of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy, suggested last month.

Shipping news #2: Some of the world’s biggest shipping lines have been reporting big losses, especially for their container division. The giant, AP Moller-Maersk of Denmark made a loss of $US1.02 billion in 2009, thanks to a loss of $US2.09 billion in its container division, the world’s biggest. The company earned $US3.46 billion in 2008. 2009 revenues fell 21% to $US48.5 billion, on a 28% plunge in container revenues. Maersk Line, its container division, has mothballed vessels throughout Europe to cut costs. And Neptune Orient, which operates the world’s fifth largest container line, lost $US741 million loss for the year on revenue down 30% to $US6.52 billion.