By 1930, the year of the 2nd Academy Awards ceremony, the awards had already been established as such an event that a local Los Angeles radio station dedicated an hour-long broadcast to the ceremony, which has been broadcast every year since then. For the first awards ceremony, the Academy had announced its winners months in advance. However, The Academy did not announce the award winners so early in advance of the second ceremony, instead releasing the names of the winners to newspapers for release at 11 p.m. on the night of the ceremony. In 1940, the Los Angeles Times released the news before the ceremony began - in its evening edition, which ceremony guests were able to get their hands on before even arriving - putting an end to that practice for the following year. Since 1941, the winners have been kept secret in a sealed envelope, opened only when the time came to announce the honorees at the awards ceremony.
1953 was the first year that the Oscar Awards ceremony was televised, and the broadcast showed throughout the United States as well as Canada. Eighteen years later, in 1966, the ceremony was televised in color for the first time. 1969 was the first year that the awards ceremony broadcast internationally, and today the show is available each year in over 200 countries.
The first Academy Awards telecast was broadcast in 1953, on NBC, where the broadcast was aired until 1960 when it moved to ABC. There it remained until 1970, until moving back to NBC through 1975. In 1976, the awards returned to ABC, where they are under contract to remain until 2014.
Beginning in 2004, the Academy Awards ceremony has broadcast live about six weeks after the nominees have been announced, so usually in the late February or early March following the calendar year to be honored. Prior to that, the ceremony had taken place in late March or early April. The switch to earlier dates was intended to not only avoid having to compete for ratings with the increasingly popular NCAA men's basketball championships, but also to stifle the months of lobbying and ad campaigns that come with the Academy Awards season, during which studios dedicate millions of dollars to promotions and publicists to make their films more visible and competitive. Every four years, however, due to the Winter Olympics, the awards will take place in early March.
It took decades to finally determine the best night to hold the Oscar ceremony each year. Prior to 1954, the ceremony had usually taken place on Thursday evenings. For the years of 1955-1958, the ceremony was held on Wednesdays. Between 1959-1998, the awards ceremony took place most often on Mondays. Since 1999, despite previous years' concerns that a weekend awards show broadcast would cut into weekend box office earnings, the ceremony switched its broadcast from taking place on a Monday 9pm Eastern time/6pm Pacific time, to taking place on a Sunday at 8:30pm Eastern time/5:30pm Pacific time in order to end the awards at a reasonable hour for East Coast viewers' bedtimes, as well as to enable more viewers to tune in given the absence of rush hour traffic jams during that time slot. Beginning in 2010, the Academy Awards began limiting winners' speeches to a maximum of 45 seconds, hoping to eliminate the commonly dreaded lengthy, embarrassing emotional displays that accompany many acceptance speeches. This is a problem that regular award ceremonies giving out corporate crystal awards does not have.
Viewership most often peaks in the years that box-office favorites are nominated for Best Picture - such as when Titanic was nominated in 1998. The Academy Awards broadcast with the most viewers in history was the 42nd ceremony in 1970, when Midnight Cowboy won Best Picture. On the other hand, when films with less box office appeal are likely to win Best Picture, the award show's ratings are reflective of much poorer viewership, such as when Crash was nominated and won in 2005.
The author of this article is 10 year veteran in the crystal awards and recognition gifts industry.
