Academy Awards Will Remove Eight Oscar Categories From Live Broadcast For This Year’s Ceremony

The Academy Awards made a bold announcement ahead of their 94th Oscars telecast on March 27. A few of the categories that were presented live at last year’s 93rd Oscar ceremony won’t be presented this year.

Academy Awards will be adopting a similar approach they gave up in 2018 following controversies. According to The Hollywood Reporter, these eight awards — documentary short, film editing, makeup/hairstyling, original score, production design, animated short, live-action short, and sound will take place inside the Dolby Theatre an hour before the live telecast starts.

The aforementioned eight awards presentation recordings will then be edited into the subsequent live broadcast. It is believed that this move was made by keeping Academy’s long-time partner’s business interests in mind. As you may know, last year saw the worst-rated Oscar telecast ever.

ABC exclusively owns the rights to air the Oscar ceremony until 2028, so it makes sense if they want to tweak their broadcast, given that last year’s fuss turned out to be a disaster.

Best picture, best director, best actor, best actress, best supporting actor, and best supporting actress are still considered the highest-profile Oscar categories and it appears only they will be presented live.