Why The Oscars Should Move Oscar Noms to Prime Time
Times have changed, so The Academy should change the time
The longest job I ever held was being the Community Manager at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. My main duties were in Social Media: creating the content, analyzing the results, and increasing the followers of our many accounts.
One of the most exciting days of the year was Oscar Noms for many reasons, especially a decade ago, back when the Press were invited to the Academy HQ in Beverly Hills to report live as the presenters announced whose careers were about to change for the next little while… and maybe forever.
They say once you win an Oscar, that will be the first thing they mention in your obituary.
The Academy puts itself into lockdown from the evening before the Noms announcement until 5:47am on announcement day. Yes, they have it down to the minute.
The Internet is off. The doors are locked unless you have a pass. There’s metal detectors. Phones are confiscated. It’s real.
The bottom floor of the building is abuzz with chatter from the press, publicists, and studio people. Typically the office there on Wilshire is super quiet, even that area — unless a screening is about to happen.
So to hear it filled with laughter and free food getting munched is a nice thing.
But as you can see, because it happens so early in the morning, these images are dark. Like my heart when I have to wake up at 330am to go to work.
The reason the noms are announced so early harkens back to two forms of Old Media: newspapers and morning television. Specifically appeasing east coast media.
If you announce that early on the west coast, the morning shows that tape in NYC like Good Morning America and The View can blab about it live, and the rest of the chat shows can continue all day.
The newspapers can call the nominated actors and directors for their reaction, they can put together charts, photo galleries for their website, then of course they can write the inevitable “who got snubbed” pieces.
And if they’re lucky, someone will have filmed a nom on their couch or bed, in their jammies, reacting to the great news.
The press can have a full day to do their thing and when the paper’s deadline hits around 5-6pm, they can have a bunch of stories including some front page headline for the next day.
Everyone wins: the media outlets look good, ABC gets soooo much free press for their big TV show, the Academy gets love (usually), and all the noms and their publicists get to crow for a few days.
But times have changed. As much as I love newspapers, and know there’s little chance I would have gotten hired at the Academy if I hadn’t worked previously at the LA Times, people don’t consume news like that any more.
Not only is it all digital and instant, these days, but the buzz fades almost as quickly.
Sadly it won’t matter how many noms One Battle After Another gets tomorrow if an hour later Trump decides he now wants to invade, I mean buy, Cuba.
Or Heaven forbid, someone else gets shot by ICE, on camera, a priest this time. Are the ladies of The View going to ignore that breaking news and instead gossip about Leo’s new girlfriend’s age?
Which is why if I ran the Oscars I would have the Noms air at 7pm Los Angeles time. Stream that puppy on Disney+ and YouTube and even TikTok.
I would make it a solid hour-long full blown production with musical guests from previous winners and surprise presenters WHO DONT NEED TO BE PUT INTO HAIR AND MAKE UP AT 4:20AM.
I’d fill the Dolby Theatre with movie fans who actually go to the movies and fund this massive industry, people who paint their nails and get dressed up to watch the Oscars on TV.
Listening to people cheer for certain nominees is the greatest, even if it’s just someone’s “team” or suits from the studio. It’s a real reaction which can be rare in our beautiful city who is filled with people who have seen it all.
And I’d have Adele Dazeem sing '“Let It Go” to kick the damn thing off.
One thing I loved about working so many Oscars is how professional everything was; how at every position you had the best of the best.
If you think carefully about Envelope Gate (something I was feet away from backstage as it was happening) that “disaster” occurred, Jimmy Kimmel made an amazing impromptu joke “Warren, what have you done?”, the problem was discovered and then rectified within a few minutes on live TV.
NFL refs with dozens of camera angles take longer to determine if play was in-bounds or not.
The Oscar Noms could be and should be treated with that same amount of movie magic on TV. Why chuck it aside in a presentation so quick it feels like it needs to run to take a leak?
This is history. Act like it.
It could also be great TV if you let it be.
My favorite artifact from my time at the Oscars was this note that was tacked up on our floor that greeted us at 4:20am when I arrived at my first Oscar nom. Since I was the person who did the majority of those things during the year I thought it was explicitly for me, but it was for all of us.
I love it because it epitomized how precise the Oscars is run and also explains why you’ve never heard of a leak before the actual announcements are made. If only government could run as smoothly and with as much professionalism, imagine the world we would have.
See you on the red carpet… where hopefully you get Cumberbatched.
