Oscars Goes Live (Again) in Decision Reversal
In a reversal of its previous decision, the 2023 Academy Awards will once again air in full across all 23 categories. This rolls back the decision to cut 8 of the categories from live broadcast which we saw removed from the 2022 telecast amid a lot of industry ire. Blake & Wang P.A entertainment lawyer Brandon Blake has all the news for us.
Brandon Blake
Controversial Decision
The original decision to ax so-called
‘unpopular’ categories- including original score, documentary short, editing,
live-action and animated short, sound, makeup and hairstyling- from the
broadcast for 2022 was not well received, both among the guilds and industry
leaders who felt it was severely downplaying the critical contributions of many
aspects of film craft and cheapening the ceremony overall.
Interestingly, this will also be the first
Oscars’ broadcast since 2018 to have a host, Jimmy Kimmel, too. Currently
scheduled to take place on March 12, 2023, live from the Dolby Theatre at
Ovation Hollywood, this will be the ceremony’s 95th year.
Viewer Engagement
The decision to ax these categories from public
broadcast was originally taken to shorten the televised time for the ceremony
in the hopes of ‘increasing viewer engagement’. In short, it was hoped it would
reverse the declining viewing figures for the ceremony overall, which have been
on a downward trend for a decade now.
It backfired quite spectacularly, with the 2022 broadcast having the
second-lowest viewership, second only to the 2021 ceremony. These declining
figures certainly indicate something is wrong overall with the way Oscar
viewership is handled, and it may be time to admit that a lavish
self-celebratory industry party no longer holds quite the star appeal it once
did with ‘common’ viewers. If the Oscars is to regain any type of hold on the
ever-increasingly packed airwaves, something needs to be done- but banishing
certain categories of award from airtime was clearly not it. Will the reversal
of this decision boost viewer engagement this awards season? It will certainly
be interesting to see.
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