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Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - UK

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Brokeback Mountain and Keira Knightley- UK Favourites for Academy Awards

March 03, 2006

Ahead of the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, my colleague Jannie and I took a look at the films and actors the UK public have been searching on over the past few weeks.

Hitwise Search Intelligence reveals that 'brokeback mountain' has continued to be the most searched-for movie since the nominations were announced back in January, ahead of 'capote' in second place and 'munich' in third place. 'Brokeback mountain', the favourite to take Best Picture on Sunday, received 3 and a half times more searches than 'capote' last week, however, interest was highest immediately following the film's release in the UK on 13th January. My personal favourite, Crash, is a distant fourth! I can only hope this is because it came out so long ago and so is largely forgotten by the UK public.

Hitwise GM of Research, Bill Tancer, blogged about US searches for 'brokeback mountain' a few weeks ago and found it was the most searched for movie at that time in the US. He includes some great stats on the demographics of visitors to the Brokeback Mountain website that any political junky will want to check out!

In the UK whilst we don't see any major regional swings in visitors to the Brokeback Mountain website, visitors are younger and more likely to be from the Mosaic segment Urban Intelligence. Internet users aged 18-24 are 62% more likely to visit the Brokeback Mountain website than average and the Urban Intelligence segment is 91% more likely to be on the site. Urban Intelligence is described by Mosaic as "young, single and mostly well-educated, these people are cosmopolitan in tastes and liberal in attitudes."

Joaquin Phoenix is currently the most searched-for of the nominated actors for his performance in Walk the Line in the UK, followed by Heath Ledger (for Brokeback Mountain) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (for Capote), whilst our homegrown nominee, Keira Knightley for Pride and Prejudice, leads the way for searches on the shortlisted actresses - just ahead of Charlize Theron (for North Country).

Ledger had been the most searched-for actor throughout January, however Phoenix overtook him for volume of searches at the beginning of February - coinciding with the UK release date of Walk the Line.

Of all searches within the Hitwise Entertainment - Movies category, 'brokeback mountain' was the 23rd most searched-for term last week.

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