Oscars to go Bollywood awards way in 2019?

You should be able to answer your own question. According to wiki, only 161 million households in India own televisions. A much smaller number than that own DVRs and such that they can add to delayed viewing numbers. That is not the case in the US where almost every household has multiple TVs.

Apart from that, the Oscars are the only big movie awards the US has and maybe you can throw in the Golden Globes. They are given live so there is a reason for people to tune in immediately.

India has literally 6 or 7 movie awards shows so viewers get dispersed. They also don't show them live so winners are declared a month in advance and people have already seen all the red carpet dresses. It leaves a lot less reason to tune in. Of course the audience is much smaller to begin with because most Indian households still don't own a TV.

Regular tv shows like Naagin can't be compared because even in the US, regular TV shows, even smash hits like Big Bang Theory are barely getting 12-13 million viewers nowadays. There are too many TV channels and online/streaming content available now and people don't like to watch anything live anymore, except sports events and the occasional awards show.

No way will they EVER go Bolly awards away. The kind of standards set by Bolly ... is way too low for Oscars to match. 😆

Oscars know to maintain their prestige and be different from the rest of the Holly awards. That won't change.

The shortening of ceremony was coming. It was heavily criticized the past few years. They're following the Tony format now.

I predict many technical/short film awards will be given during the commercial breaks.

The awards that'll be presented live will be the Films (Picture, Animated, Foreign, Documentary), Acting (4), Directing(1), Writing(2), Cinematography(1), Editing(1), Score/Song (2), VFX(1).

It frankly won't make a difference as they will be integrated into the main show... just not a lot of time announcing, waiting to come and hear speech circus. You'll just get to hear the edited TY speech.

The announcement of Popular Film is clearly to pander to viewership. A decade ago they changed the Best Pic category rules to accommodate up to 10 nominations. The whole idea then was the same... get more viewership... and making it possible for the blockbusters to find a mention. However, as the years went by, the slots still continued to be occupied by critical favorites (popularity being coincidental). And even if the popular films got nominated, it was the critical darling that snabbed the top honor (Moonlight anyone???😉). So this wasn't sufficient either to get the viewers to glued to the screen.

Therefore, given the revenue and viewership popular films exclusively enjoy, it makes sense to give them an opportunity to shine as well.

I'm curious to read the eligibility rules...

do films have to make > $$$ to qualify?

If they do, can they compete in both Best Picture as well as Best Popular Film? (Similar to the case of Animated Films simultaneously competing for Best Pic? Up, TS3)

Will Best Picture category go back to 5 nominees only, now with the intro of new exclusive Popular film category???

Let's see how it all unfolds. In the end... Best Picture will be the last award and that trademark will go to a critical favorite (BB being coincidence)... so the end result won't change. The last time an ATBB won best pic was LOTR!😆

And I welcome early Feb telecast. They change scheduling every decade. Back 20 years ago, it was always in last week of March/early April. It got reeled in to late Feb/early March in early 2000s to shorten the campaign season.

Now with Oscar pulling in early, all the other ceremonies will have to pull in (GG, BAFTA, Guild awards). ⭐️