For the first time in decades, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will not be revealing Oscars nominations with a live announcement from the AMPAS headquarters in Beverly Hills.
Instead, the Academy will have an array of past winners read this year’s Oscar nominees in an online global event that will also be aired on television on Tuesday, January 24.
The past winners — who will include Jennifer Hudson, Brie Larson, Emmanuel Lubezki, Jason Reitman and Ken Watanabe — will join Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs and offer insights into their own Oscars experience, along with welcoming the new nominees to the club.
“In a departure from our tradition of a live audience at the Academy, this year’s nominations will be announced via a global live stream on Oscar.com, Oscars.org, the Academy’s digital platforms, a satellite feed, and local broadcasters, including ‘Good Morning America,’” said a release from the Academy.
The announcement will begin at 5:18 a.m. PT, 20 minutes earlier than the traditional 5:38 announcement, when fewer than a dozen categories were announced live on the air.
Last year’s nominations event began at 5:30, with the first of two separate announcements that covered all 24 categories.
The change fits with the Academy’s push in recent years to have a greater online presence, from promotion of the Oscars show to increased online voting and awards-screener streaming to, this year, invitations to join AMPAS sent by email rather than regular mail.
The new format ends the longstanding Oscars tradition in which press and publicists would go to Academy headquarters in the wee hours for the announcement, sharing a pre-nominations buffet breakfast and then rushing to spread the news once the names were revealed.
The 89th Oscars will take place on Sunday, Feb. 26.