Make a note in your calendars – next year’s Oscars has moved back a week, to March 7, 2010.
The reason for the move – the ceremony usually takes place on the last Sunday in February – seems to have been because of a scheduling clash with the Winter Olympics, which take place next Feb in snowy Vancouver.
Apparently, despite the fact that Winter Olympics are even more boring than that priest with the really boring voice in the Father Ted Christmas special, it somehow is a ratings winner in the States, with millions tuning in to watch riveting sports like the Overweight People Inexplicably Pushing Bits Of Round Stone Down An Icy Rink With Brooms and the 4x400m Snowman Relay.
The Winter Olympics airs on NBC. The Oscars airs on ABC. It seems that something had to give, and the Academy Of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences decided to move the ceremony back a week; a similar decision was taken in 2006, the last time the two events clashed.
The decision has had a knock-on effect, with voting for the 82nd Academy Awards also moved back. Voting will now conclude on Feb 2nd – this year, January 22nd was the deadline.
Obviously, this doesn’t mean a lot in the long run – the Oscars will still be handed out, people will still grumble about who won what and we’ll still secretly wish that they’d ask Stephen Colbert to host. But we’re a little annoyed that the Academy didn’t grow a pair and go head-to-head with the Winter Olympics.
After all, given a choice between watching an elaborate, if ultimately misguided, song and dance number about the power of Estonian cinema, or the thrilling climax of the Trying To Keep Your Balance On An Icy Step competition, we know where our loyalties would lie. Yours too, right, readers? Right?