This is a failure of stewardship, a failure of nerve, a failure of producing, a failure to understand television, a failure of network custody of the Oscars, and a failure of Academy governance.
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By the way: How interesting that none of the categories consigned to commercial breaks happen to feature a nominee from Disney, the parent company of ABC.
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This is about ABC using the falling ratings for ALL awards shows as a way to tell AMPAS "You're doing it wrong" with the goal of turning the show into an infomercial for commercial Hollywood product, including its own, and AMPAS being too naive about TV to know it's being played.
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It's especially disgraceful for the Academy to issue a statement saying its mission is "to promote films to a wordwide audience" while brushing off Best Cinematography in a year in which, for the first time, three foreign-language films are nominated in the category.
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And lest anyone think the Academy's back is against the wall on this, it was reported last week that AMPAS's assets now top $1 billion.
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It would be heartening if some prominent people in the industry and the Academy raised their voices about this now rather than the day after the ceremony. Here's hoping.
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To those who are saying "Cut the 3 awards for shorts--nobody cares": It's AMPAS's job to help you care. It's done that by sticking with the shorts awards until, a few years ago, a company finally decided to package the shorts nominees and release them theatrically. The result: >
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A short film package that has, every year, grossed more theatrically than the year before. The 2019 collection of shorts opened Friday to a 1st-weekend gross of almost $1 million. When you treat the awards you give with respect, people will get more interested, not less.
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Pretty sure the dropped categories were selected based on the internal power of the branch members.
EVERYTHING about ALL industry awards is internal politics and power plays.
I'm quite surprised they didn't drop the sound awards. Dropping cinematography is appalling.
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After watching the Grammy’s become a 3-hour exercise in CBS cross promotion, I’m not surprised.
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As I have noted before… 4 categories is just a half-assed change. I don’t think they need to cut any. But 8 categories is a change. 4 is a head fake… an incredibly insulting head fake.
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