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Photo: Jon Stewart will host the 80th Academy Awards® telecast. This will mark Stewart's second stint as Oscar® host. Academy Awards® for outstanding film achievements of 2007 will be presented on Sunday, February 24, 2008, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m. PT. The Oscar® presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.
By Oliver Carnay
Hollywood Foreign Press Association, unable to get special agreements with the Writers Guild Association, decided to shut down the Golden Globes dinner ceremony to be held at the Hilton Beverly Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, in an announcement made on Monday, January 7. Instead, the famed broadcast will be reduced from a three-hour gala to an hour-long news conference which will be aired on NBC (Channel 4) network, announcing the winners. The announcement was evidently expected after the recent statement released by the Screen Actors Guild that none of the 70+ participating nominees would be attending the ceremony in support of the WGA strike.
Since no stars would be attending, and only clippings of stars and films nominated will be shown, the network and the event would save millions of dollars in advertising revenue. Large scale after-parties from major outfits and other organizers have as well noted to be cancelled.
The WGA strike which started on November 4, 2007, continues to idle television programs and major film productions and Los Angeles area currently has already $1.4 billion in lost wages..
Despite WGA President- Patrick Verone’s announcement that guild would turn down any request from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences for its members to work for Oscars, Academy® president Sid Ganis stated that “the Academy show would still go on.” Gil Cates, producer of the Oscars also noted, “Academy will put on its Oscar show on February 24 as planned – with or without the writers!”
Nominations for the Oscar Awards will be announced on January 22. If the Oscars fell through its planned ceremony, it will be a huge loss for the academy and to ABC network because of the millions of dollars in advertising income it would generate. (Photo courtesy of A.M.P.A.S.)