The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced in late February that eight categories would be removed from this year's live telecast: best original score, film editing, production design, makeup and hairstyling, sound, documentary short subject, live action short film and animated short film. Instead, those awards will be given out in a taped ceremony before the telecast begins, which will then be quickly edited and broadcast as truncated clips during the live show. (A similar idea was suggested in 2019 but abandoned after fierce backlash.)
The academy also announced #OscarsFanFavorite and #OscarsCheerMoment, two fan-voted categories whose winners, selected online, will be announced during the ceremony (and its voters entered into a sweepstakes with prizes ranging from free movie tickets to giving out an award at the 2023 event).
These moves come after a decade of declining viewership - last year's telecast was the lowest-rated in history - which has found the academy making or proposing several changes, including the expansion of best picture nominees from 5 to 10 and the quickly retracted plan in 2018 to have a popular film category.
ABC, which owns the broadcast rights for the Oscars, jointly made the decision to shake up this year's ceremony with the academy, according to a person familiar with network discussions. Representatives from the academy did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Washington Post.
"The academy is looking to get a bigger audience, but I don't think they know where the audience is," Heim said.
Guilds such as the Cinema Audio Society, the Society of Composers and Lyricists, the Alliance for Women Film Composers and the Set Decorators Society of America, have released statements urging the academy to reverse course. A letter to AMPAS President David Rubin signed by more than six dozen film professionals - including industry titans such as James Cameron, Kathleen Kennedy, Guillermo del Toro and John Williams - stated that the decision is "valuing some filmmaking disciplines over others and relegating those others to the status of second-class citizen."
It's going to be fun to watch how this whole thing unravels. Sad what folks will do to the fragility of their integrity for the temporal notion of a 'higher rating'. Sitting at a diner, and I've just lost my appetite. bye.
