After the annoucement the other day that there will be 10 instead of five Best Picture nominees at the Oscars next year comes news of more changes, which mean the Best Original Song Oscar may not get presented at all in some years. Previously there were always between three and five nominees in that category, but now if no tune reaches an average score of 8.25 in the nominations voting, no Oscar will be handed out in that category at all.
If only one song gets 8.25 or more, it and the next highest rated song will become the only nominees, although up to five tunes could be nominated in a good year.
It’s also been announced that the Irving J. Thalberg Award (given to ‘Creative producers whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production’) and the Jean Hersholt Humantarian Award (for Hollywood folk who’ve done good works) will no longer be handed out during the main Oscar ceremony. Instead there’ll be a special ceremony in November for those honours.
It seems that after several years of declining Oscar TV audiences, the Academy are really trying to breathe new life into the ceremony, removing bits people don’t like and finding ways to include more mainstream movies that general viewers are interested in. Whether it actually succeeds in making the ceremony more entertaining is yet to be seen.