+2
I think that Brother Blue and Tramp have pretty much covered it.
They want a bigger and younger audience and the way you do that is include the films those people watch. Also, over the years, they've been getting more and more into a Woody Allen situation. In the same way that, while he gets older the women in his films stay the same age, so there was a time when Hollywood's best were also some of the most watched films of the year, but now they're often films that, without the Oscars, many of the people watching the Oscars wouldn't have even heard of.
Another thing I'll throw out there is that for a growing number of people, myself included, the Oscars is something I see or take interest in out of habit or a sense of tradition. We can be pretty sure who'll win what and we also know that it has little to do with merit and much to do with Hollywood politics, favourites and advertising. Hell, I only watched most of this years 'Oscar films' because they'd been nominated and, therefore, were in competition. I think Frost/Nixon was the only film I was looking forward to.