Slumdog Millionaire may be a winner with Hollywood but its scenes of squalor and child mutilation are a turn-off for advertisers.

Organisers of the Oscars ceremony tomorrow expect advertising revenues to be 16 per cent down on last year. The spluttering economy, of course, is also to blame: the almost-bankrupt General Motors has given up buying ad slots, as has Dove soap and L’Oréal Paris while American Express, usually a big spender, has bought only one slot.

Even the post-Oscars parties, which in previous years generated about $150 million (£104 million) for the local economy, have been scaled back, with Vanity Fair choosing a more

“intimate” location for its A-list gathering and recycling the décor from previous years’ events.

Vikas Swarup, who wrote the book on which Slumdog Millionaire was based, rejected suggestions that the film’s dark subject matter was contributing to a difficult year for the Academy Awards. “People are relating to the film and they are loving it, so who am I to complain?” he said. “I think Danny [Boyle, the film's director] brings an outsider’s sensibility to the project, but one which is imbued with a lot of respect and empathy for the people of Mumbai.”

Film critics believe that the Oscars ceremony fares better when mass- market films dominate the nominees’ list. “There isn’t a movie among the Best Picture nominees that has connected with mainstream viewers,” said T. Alfred in the Dallas Morning News. “They are, for the most part, smaller, more boutique films. There’s no Titanic. There’s no Lord of the Rings.”

ABC, which broadcasts the Oscars, was able to sell 30-second advertising slots in the ceremony for as much as $1.8 million each last year. This year they are going for between $1.4 million and $1.7 million, with the show’s revenues expected to drop from $81 million to $68 million.

Although the recession will be primarily blamed for a badly performing Oscars ceremony, many believe that it is the show itself that needs an overhaul. This week’s edition of Newsweek magazine included an article entitled Why I Hate the Oscars.

For the organisers of the Academy Awards, however, there is still hope that America’s love affair with red carpets and million-dollar frocks isn’t over yet: while Newsweek slates the event as a “self-indulgent, self-congratulatory spectacle”, it goes on to say that it is “simultaneously repellent and unmissable”.

The main nominations

Best Picture

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Frost/Nixon

Milk

The Reader

Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor

Richard Jenkins The Visitor

Frank Langella Frost/Nixon

Sean Penn Milk

Brad Pitt The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Mickey Rourke The Wrestler

Best Actress

Anne Hathaway Rachel Getting Married

Angelina Jolie Changeling

Melissa Leo Frozen River

Meryl Streep Doubt

Kate Winslet The Reader

Best Director

David Fincher The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Ron Howard Frost/Nixon

Gus Van Sant Milk

Stephen Daldry The Reader

Danny Boyle Slumdog Millionaire

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