For anyone who's spent any time in academia, the way "academic" is used pejoratively in this thread is daft. An academic lecture is a performance, and can be as gripping as any musical one. Richard Feynman was famous for his showmanship (and in physics that goes back to Michael Faraday). Probably the most spectacular I've heard in person was Paul Feyerabend - he may well be on video. And I doubt anyone who heard Jean-Yves Girard talking about his work in logic will ever have forgotten it, however little they knew about the background.

I doubt if any college accountancy lecture has ever sunk to the level of numbing dullness Tony McManus and Martin Simpson can achieve with the guitar. Please find some other term of abuse.