The Academy Awards are leaving broadcast television. Or broadcast television is getting rid of the Academy Awards.<\/p>\n
Either way, the network television event that has been seen on ABC for five decades is moving to YouTube TV, owned by Google.<\/p>\n
The deal calls for the awards show to stay on ABC through 2028, the 100th anniversary of this pinnacle of Hollywood success. From 2029 through 2033 it will be seen on YouTube, \u201cfor free globally and on YouTube TV in the U.S.,\u201d according<\/a> to the company.<\/p>\n YouTube TV, if you\u2019re not familiar with it, is a subscription streaming service that will deliver your favorite channels to your phone, tablet, computer, smart TV or game console for a monthly fee of about $80. NFL football is extra.<\/p>\n It\u2019s more complicated than broadcast TV, which doesn\u2019t have a troubleshooting page or need one. YouTube TV\u2019s support page offers lengthy solutions to common problems such as \u201cI can hear audio, but I don\u2019t see the video\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m not getting local stations on my TV.\u201d Some subscribers are \u201chaving issues watching YouTube on my Roku player\u201d while others have the same problem \u201con my Apple TV.\u201d<\/p>\n YouTube TV is separate from the YouTube site you can watch on the internet for free, which was always the price of television programming when the goal was to deliver the largest possible audience to advertisers. At some point between Johnny Carson and Jimmy Kimmel, watching broadcast television began to feel like mandatory classwork in a political re-education camp. Ratings dropped as much of the audience fled to friendlier territory.\u00a0<\/p>\n The entire entertainment industry seemed to put up a \u201cNo Conservatives Need Apply\u201d sign, both on the set and in the seats.<\/p>\n In 2016, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that hands out the Oscars, abruptly announced new rules to revoke the lifetime voting rights of members who were \u201cinactive.\u201d This was defined as not having worked in ten years. The withholding of ballots from longtime Oscar voters was a knee-jerk response to criticism after two years in a row without a nomination for an actor \u201cof color.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But insulting longtime members of the Academy by implying that they were a bunch of white supremacists didn\u2019t solve the Academy\u2019s problem, which was that the organization was being criticized for racism in Hollywood but had no control over what movies were made, who was hired for them or what color they were.<\/p>\n So in 2024, the Academy imposed new \u201cRepresentation and Inclusion Standards\u201d that said<\/a> no film could be nominated for Best Picture unless it met at least two of four standards.<\/p>\n The first was \u201dOn-Screen Representation, Themes and Narratives.\u201d This could be satisfied if a lead actor or \u201csignificant\u201d supporting actor was from an \u201cunderrepresented racial or ethnic group,\u201d or if \u201cat least 30% of actors not submitted for Oscar consideration\u201d were from \u201cat least two underrepresented groups.\u201d These groups were described as women, LGBTQ+, people with cognitive or physical disabilities or who are deaf or hard of hearing, or belonging to a specified racial or ethnic group. Bhutanese, Mongolian, Nepali and Laotian are among the qualified ethnicities on the list. Lacking that, the main storyline of the film could be centered on \u201cat least one\u201d of those \u201cunderrepresented groups.\u201d<\/p>\n The other \u201cstandards\u201d call for specific numbers of people from the \u201cunderrepresented groups\u201d to have worked on the film\u2019s \u201ccreative leadership\u201d team or other top jobs on the set, or to have been given \u201cindustry access and opportunities\u201d in the film business, or to be working as \u201cin-house senior executives\u201d in marketing and publicity.<\/p>\n A film might be brilliant, compelling and original, but if it didn\u2019t check enough of these boxes, it could not be nominated for Best Picture.<\/p>\n The problem is obvious. You can make a picture about a deaf Bhutanese man who decides to become a nun but you can\u2019t make anybody pay $17 to see it.<\/p>\n