MONEY, MONEY, MONEY THINK YOU'RE WATCHING AN AWARDS SHOW? YOU'RE REALLY WATCHING AN INFOMERCIAL FOR MOVIES, TV AND MUSIC.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

The celebs are walking down a red carpet but underneath it is nothing but green.

It's awards season but the ultimate prize is money. So stars get gussied up for what amounts to flashy, glittery infomercials worth millions of dollars in TV ratings, album sales and at the movie box office.

``Advertising 101 tells you (that) if your product name is widely exposed, it helps,'' says Paul Dergarabedian of Exhibitor Relations, which tracks box-office figures.

With more than 100 entertainment-related award presentations each year, 35 of them televised, there is plenty of opportunity for the entertainment industry to get its product name out there.

Many of the awards shows that are film-related - like the Golden Globes and Oscars - are grouped at the beginning of the year. Dergarabedian notes that nominated films become water-cooler conversations, which translates to bigger audiences.

Take three of last year's Oscar Best Picture nominees - ``Traffic,'' ``Chocolat'' and ``Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.'' By the time of nominations in February, all had been in theaters eight weeks or more, a period when most films are ending their runs. ``Traffic'' made $53 million after its Oscar nomination ($124 million total), ``Chocolat'' $44.8 million post-nominations ($71.3 total) and ``Tiger'' $68 million after its 10 nominations ($128 million total).

Even eventual winner ``Gladiator, which was already out on video when the nominations were announced, likely benefited. It was the top rental of last year.

This is part of what Dergarabedian calls the ripple effect, which works in other ways, too.

Awards guru Tom O'Neil, who handicaps award shows for E! Entertainment and keeps tabs on the whole shebang on his Web site, www.goldderby.com, adds it up this way:

Oscars - $40 million for the motion picture academy and more than $25 million in ad revenues and international broadcast rights for ABC.

Primetime Emmys - about $3.5 million for the television academy and more than $3 million for CBS.

Grammys - more than $24 million for the recording academy and $20 million for CBS.

Those are the tangible profits. Harder to tally but even more significant are the promotional benefits.

Pushing the envelopes

``All of these statuettes may be merely gold-plated, but the return is pure gold for the studios, the networks and the record companies,'' O'Neil said.

And the ripple goes abroad, too. A dozen of the top awards shows are televised overseas.

How important is that? Entertainment is one of our biggest exports. Foreign grosses on movies started to outstrip domestic grosses in 1997 and keep getting bigger. Look at ``Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,'' which has made $300 million in the U.S. but $500 million overseas. ``Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,'' has taken in around $450 million worldwide, more than half of that from outside the United States. Imagine what a Best Picture honor could mean to either of them. Even supreme blockbuster ``Titanic'' enjoyed a box-office bounce from its 1998 Oscars.

And what better ad for Hollywood than an awards show with the stars promoting their films (not to mention the celebs from whatever network promoting their series). And when you think about it, it's an ad with ads, many of them for movies and TV shows and music releases.

But luckily it isn't all just big business that benefits.

Veteran director Robert Altman, who's up for a Golden Globe award for ``Gosford Park,'' says awards shows ``help sell the pictures, and if the pictures become popular and become profitable, it makes it then a lot easier for me to do my next film.''

That's good news for all smaller, indie-minded films like ``In the Bedroom,'' which, Dergarabedian notes, could get a real bounce if it's nominated.

``(Awards) become very important to each filmmaker because they really give you access and they give you a certain amount of power,'' Altman said.

Surfeit of esteem

But will the glut of awards lessen their value? The first televised ceremony of the new year, the inaugural AFI Awards on Jan. 5, failed to muster significant support from Hollywood or viewers. Few winners accepted in person, and it ranked 76th for the week in household ratings. CBS has not yet decided whether to air it next season.

``I think in a way a lot of this is the goose that killed the golden egg,'' frequent Oscars producer Gilbert Cates said of the awards glut. ``There is a limit to how many awards shows people can be interested in. It's to no one's benefit to proliferate them.''

Cates said he believes the marketplace will decide which awards thrive and which ones go by the wayside. Talent attendance also will be key, as stars juggle awards demands with work and other commitments.

``How many times do you expect Tom Cruise or Annette Bening to go anywhere?'' Cates said. ``Twice, three times, five times, 10 times? There is a time when they won't come. And how many times does the audience want to see Tom Cruise on an awards show?''

And how much do any of the awards mean?

Look at the Hollywood Foreign Press, which puts on the Golden Globe Awards. The organization deserves credit for cleaning up its act over the years after being seen as a celebrity-worshiping club and has proven to be influential in Academy Award nominations that come later. But the voting HFPA membership is fewer than 100, some of whom aren't known for being film critics. Do artists accepting a Globe think about that?

``We're actors and I guess we're kind of needy,'' Jeffrey Wright said after claiming one of the prizes at the AFI Awards. Ironically, AFI voters and members of the nominating committees were some of the most prestigious and respected names in Hollywood.

But if awards shows were really about artistry or important contributions to humanity, networks would broadcast the Nobel Prize ceremony.

The shows go on

In the meantime, entertainment-related awards are as numerous as snowflakes in Buffalo. The Web site www.lastarz.com keeps track of more than 75 of them.

``We did lose the CableACE Awards a couple of years ago once their shows started doing so well at the Emmys, so we should be thankful for small favors,'' said Barbara Corday, co-creator of the two-time Emmy-winning series ``Cagney & Lacey.''

Perhaps a special award should be given this year to Blockbuster Video for apparently recognizing the overkill. In November the chain announced the suspension of the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, its April shower of silly honors such as ``favorite villain'' and ``favorite action hero,'' citing ``the uncertainty of the times.'' There was no immediate determination whether the ceremony will return whenever times become more certain.

There was considerable hand-wringing in the days and weeks after Sept. 11 when the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences scrubbed its Sept. 16 Emmys ceremony, then pulled the plug a second time on Oct. 7 because of the start of retaliatory strikes in Afghanistan.

Organizers said it was the wrong time for such celebrations and acknowledged that some nominees were staying away because of security concerns. The elephant in the room with the decision makers was, of course, the money at stake: the licensing fee already invested by CBS, the ad dollars the network would lose and the nonprofit television academy's major source of income. So the show went on, finally, on Nov. 4, with mostly dressed-down stars and a more solemn tone.

The ratings for the People's Choice Awards tonight on CBS and those that follow will tell whether American viewers still have a serious appetite for Hollywood's back-patting in the post-Sept. 11 world.

Regardless of the ratings, awards shows will continue and may grow in number, O'Neil says. Televised ceremonies are two- to three-hour commercials for celebrities, the productions they recognize, and the jewelers and designers who adorn the stars. They are cheap to produce compared with a two-hour movie or two drama series episodes, and they're attractive to advertisers. So trophy manufacturers, red-carpet layers, caterers and florists needn't worry.

On the other hand, anyone who has eked out a living in show business out here and hasn't won some kind of award yet, well - what are you waiting for? Get busy filling out those entry forms for next year.

CAPTION(S):

21 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 12 -- cover -- color) Awards rewards

Add it up, all those celebs waving statuettes equal more money for Hollywood

Staff photos by: John Lazar, John McCoy, Gus Ruelas and David Sprague

(13 -- 16) They're all winners, from 2001: Sheryl Crow, left, with Grammy; George Clooney with Golden Globe; Edie Falco with Emmy; and Russell Crowe with Oscar.

(17) ``Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring''

(18) Denzel Washington

(19) Gene Hackman

(20) Sissy Spacek

(21) 'I think in a way a lot of this is the goose that killed the golden egg. There is a limit to how many awards shows people can be interested in. It's to no one's benefit to proliferate them.'

- Gilbert Cates

former Academy Awards producer

Box:

AND THE WINNERS ARE...