The Oscar Ceremonies for 2004 began with TV special coverage of
preliminaries about 8:00, EST, Feb 29, and continued until just past midnight,
ending at 12:09 with the major awards for best actors, pictures, and
directors. I watched, and thought it was a good show, and made a formal
prediction. I consulted with some other people and decided on the show
time proper, beginning at 20:00 and ending at 00:09, which translates to
01:00 to 05:09 GMT (March 1).
The figure tells the story, namely, the EGG network
did not get excited over the Oscars. The final Chisquare is 14937 on
14940 df, with p = 0.505.
Of course the Oscar evening is a US-centric event, which is described by
some commentators as "Hollywood congratulating Hollywood." In any case
it is worthwhile to see what the outcome might be if we look at data
only from US eggs, of which there were 19 reporting on this evening. The
following figure shows a striking trend, steadily downward for most of
the evening, and then a sharp inflection and a reversal of direction.
The second figure shows just the last half hour of the ceremonies, when
most of the "big" awards are given: the best actor and actress, best
director, and best movie. That half hour shows a very strong positive
outcome, which if it had been formally predicted would be associated
with a probability against chance of 0.0004.
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