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That is shaping as much as be an enormous yr for the Oscars, partially as a result of it’s going to begin somewhat earlier. ABC announced that the 96th Academy Awards ceremony, which takes place Sunday in Los Angeles and will likely be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, will air an hour early for the primary time ever in Oscars historical past.
As an alternative of its conventional time slot of 8 p.m. ET, the printed will start at 7 p.m. ET and 4 p.m. on the West Coast. (The official preshow kicks off half an hour earlier than the ceremony at 6:30 p.m. ET and three:30 p.m. on the West Coast.)
ABC didn’t reply to Quick Firm’s request for remark, however there are probably just a few the explanation why the Academy Awards and ABC would wish to air the ceremony earlier. Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that the choice behind pushing the telecast’s begin time by an hour was to verify it finally ends up inside prime-time hours on the East Coast.
The ceremony is normally round three to 3 and a half hours lengthy, and up to now cable networks have tried to maintain the telecast inside that timeframe with out a lot success. For example, the Academy beforehand experimented with handing out sure awards forward of the printed. Nonetheless, some telecasts nonetheless managed to slide previous the 11 p.m. hour, a time when viewership tends to see a drop-off, particularly on the East Coast.
The 2024 Academy Awards additionally occurs to align with daylight saving time this yr—when folks lose an hour of sleep—so there’s an opportunity the community doesn’t wish to be accountable for making audiences really feel much more drained when heading to work the next morning.
Up to now this yr, different award exhibits have smashed data. The 81st Golden Globes telecast on CBS that passed off in January averaged 9.4 million viewers, up greater than 50% from the earlier yr, in keeping with Nielsen. In the meantime, final month’s 66th Grammy Awards telecast, which additionally aired on CBS, brought in 16.9 million viewers, up 34% from final yr. The Critics Alternative Awards on the CW community additionally noticed a bump in viewership with greater than one million viewers tuning in, up 14% from final yr.
In 2023, the ninety fifth Academy Awards ceremony, which was additionally hosted by Kimmel and had a runtime of greater than three and a half hours, reached a median of practically 20 million viewers, up 8% from the yr earlier than, making it the highest-rated present in three years. Following the notorious second when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on the 94th Academy Awards the yr prior, the viewers jumped by 600,000 viewers. Nonetheless, the rankings have but to get again to pre-pandemic ranges, and the final time the ceremony noticed greater than 40 million viewers was in 2014.
However this yr the Oscars appear to be banking on final summer time’s Barbenheimer mania to seize folks’s consideration. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer leads the best way with 13 nominations—and regardless of some initial backlash towards the Academy for snubbing Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie within the directing and appearing classes, Barbie is nominated for a complete of eight Oscars. It was confirmed that Ryan Gosling would carry out “I’m Simply Ken,” which is nominated for Finest Tune, complete with 65 male backup dancers. Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, will perform “What Was I Made For?” from the movie, in a transfer that might draw curiosity from the singer-songwriter’s youthful fan base.
Plus, host Kimmel has change into a well-liked alternative for the awards present. This will likely be his fourth time internet hosting the Oscars after internet hosting final yr’s ceremony in addition to the 2017 and 2018 editions.
This yr’s broadcast will likely be followed by a brand new particular episode of ABC’s massively in style sitcom Abbott Elementary, which normally airs on Wednesdays, and the providing may get the present’s followers to tune into the Oscars telecast as nicely.
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