Rotten Tomatoes is Tweaking Their System for Critic Reviews

I know many of you are already groaning and complaining since Rotten Tomatoes is being mentioned. However, this might be something good. Rotten Tomatoes has announced that it is changing their criteria for critics. First, Rotten Tomatoes will be allowing podcast and video reviews and will consider them alongside the written reviews for scoring. Second, it is now a bit easier to become a critic on their site. EW states:

In a first wave changes being rolled out, the site will add podcasts and video movie reviews to its mix of scores instead of just written ones. Also, the site will relax its critic certification process to allow prolific reviewers who might not be full-time employees of a known publication to get their self-published reviews on the site. Rotten Tomatoes is considering tweaking other aspects of its platform as well.

Yes, that sounds like some buzzwords, but this could help lead to a more diverse group of critics which in turn could (in theory) improve the site and present a more accurate score. Third, it sounds like more changes will be coming in waves.

I know a lot of people don’t like Rotten Tomatoes for various reasons. However, I am cautiously optimistic about them changing things up. Maybe this can help close the gap between “Critics” and “Audiences.”