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Queen and Adam Lambert will perform at this year's Academy Awards
Every year, the public seems to be interested in everything related to the Oscars. Except that it is for the ceremony itself.
This year's event takes place on Sunday nights, but while most of us like to discover who has won the Best Actress or Best Film award, fewer people than ever have been watching. of television broadcasting.
Last year, the live audience of the ceremony was the lowest in the history of the Oscars, with an average of 26.5 million viewers, up from 32.9 million in 2017.
Increased competition from streaming services will certainly have played a role – but the public will probably not be tired of seeing how tedious the three-and-a-half hour ceremony has become.
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"The first Oscars took less than 10 minutes," says Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter, "which was obviously pre-televised.
"Television has arrived, and the networks have paid a fortune for the Oscars, so they expected a more complete type of show.
"It did not just mean giving up the prizes, but adding performance elements, so it became more telegenic to include singing, dancing, and comedy."
Comedians like Chris Rock, Ellen DeGeneres and Jimmy Kimmel recently hosted the show to entertain the audience between two awards and with an opening routine.
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Jimmy Kimmel, Ellen DeGeneres and Chris Rock have hosted Oscars in recent years
There are also traditionally five musical performances among the best nominees of original songs.
But adding all these elements to the 24 categories means that television broadcasting is too long for some viewers.
As a result, the Academy attempted this year to make some changes to try to keep the audience tuned – including reducing the broadcast time to three hours.
But since then, they have had to make almost all their decisions to save time because of the pressure from the film industry.
What were the proposals?
The Academy initially announced that the names of the winners of four of the categories would be announced during the commercial breaks, the published highlights being broadcast in the last part of the television broadcast.
Prizes for cinematography, film editing, live-stock, makeup and hairstyle would have been distributed while the public at home is having additional snacks on television.
But, Feinberg suggests: "It would have been really risky.
"During commercials, when people at the ceremony know that they are not live, they run around talking to people, going to the bathroom, being a bit noisy, and it might have seemed disrespectful to the winners. who got their prices during this period ".
Several film industry personalities, including Spike Lee, Seth Rogen and Martin Scorsese, have also opposed the change.
The Academy has reinstated the categories and told its members last week: "All awards will be presented without changes, in our traditional format."
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Crazy Rich Asians may not have any nominations, but one of his Awkwafina stars has been enlisted as one of the category presenters
With the same number of categories to be crossed, the time savings could well be the absence of host.
After the departure of Kevin Hart, the Academy confirmed that this year, it would rather have a mixture of celebrities introducing individual categories.
Jennifer Lopez, Whoopi Goldberg, Daniel Craig, Awkwafina and Tina Fey are among those with whom the Academy is hoping to win the loyalty of viewers.
This means that the host's opening monologue will be ignored, which will also save time, but it is unlikely that the ceremony will launch directly into the rewards distribution.
Karey Burke, president of the ABC television channel, which airs the Oscars, said that there was something special about the launching work of the ceremony.
"We have a very exciting opening match and we are not going to go directly to the people who are thanking their agents," she said.
There will also be tougher rules regarding acceptance speeches.
At the Academy's annual luncheon last month, candidates were informed that they would have 90 seconds between when their name is called and when their speech will have to be finished.
"That means you can play at 8:15," said Oscar producer Glenn Weiss.
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Lady Gaga and Kendrick Lamar are both nominated for the best song this year
Such changes could make the ceremony tighter, but that might not be the only thing that would prevent viewers from looking at each other.
In his ten-point plan to save the Oscars last year, Piers Morgan suggested to the Academy to "halve musical performances and get rid of the category of best songs."
But the Academy has already confirmed that she will not cut any songs. All this year's nominees, including Kendrick Lamar and Lady Gaga, will perform.
(They had initially flirted with the idea of only playing a few nominees, but that's another idea that they quickly opposed after the industry backlash.)
Artistic v popular
The Academy announced last week that Queen and Adam Lambert would present outstanding musical performances.
They are included because one of the nominated films this year is Bohemian Rhapsody, the group's biopic.
Another of Morgan's suggestions was: "Stop awarding the Best Picture Award to obscure films that very few non-filmmakers see, love or really understand."
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Moonlight won the best picture in 2017 despite its more moderate box office success
His last point is the number of short arthouse films that have won in recent years at the expense of box office success.
In 2017, for example, the very popular La La Land, which made a profit of 440 million dollars (334 million pounds sterling), lost to Moonlight, who lost less than a fifth – 65 millions of dollars (49 million pounds sterling).
"If you look at the numbers over the years, the ratings are closely correlated to the popularity of the best nominees because people feel that they have a fundamental interest in the outcome," says Feinberg.
"Last year, it was not surprising that audience ratings were a resounding success, as Three Billboards and The Shape of Water were not the most visited films by the public.
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"If they had proposed something like Wonder Woman, I think the numbers would probably have been a little better.This year they have a lot riding on Black Panther.
"It's important for ABC, the Academy, Disney, that Black Panther is not snubbed."
The popularity of Black Panther is perhaps one of the reasons why the Academy has attempted to introduce a new category this year to recognize more box office success.
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Black Panther won first prize at the Screen Actors Guild Awards last month
Last August, he announced the introduction of the popular film category, for which Black Panther would not only have been definitively named, but would also likely have won the award.
But that's another decision they would come back to – pointing to the complication of introducing a new category so late in the year, when studios did not have time to prepare or target their promotional campaigns. towards the awards season.
It would also have meant another category to break through the night – and most agree that the Academy will no longer need it.
"Over the years, the number of categories at the Oscars has increased," says Feinberg, "and it is much easier to add categories than to remove them.
"And that's because once a category is on air, the people who would be affected do not want to waste that potential airtime for their field of work."
Keeping the Oscars both short and entertaining is a surprisingly heavy task in this day and this short period of attention.
All eyes will be turned to Hollywood Sunday night to see if they can get there.
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