The biggest night in Hollywood will soon be streamed right next to Mr. Beast.
You heard right: the Oscars, the Academy Awards, the annual ceremony, the red carpet, the most glamourous faces in Hollywood gathering to give themselves golden statuettes, is going to YouTube—starting in 2029.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences delivered the bombshell news on Wednesday, and the Academy’s decision will no doubt be greeted by howls of outrage and indignation from the embattled movie industry.
The Academy Awards will begin airing—ahem, streaming—on YouTube starting in 2029, with the four-year deal running through 2033. The Oscars broadcast will stream for free on YouTube, along with the Governors Awards, the announcement of Oscar nominations, and more.
The Oscars has aired on network TV—bouncing back and forth between NBC and ABC—for more than 70 years, and while the ratings for the awards show have been in steep decline over the past decade or so, the broadcast is still viewed as quite the prestigious event.
So moving the Academy Awards to streaming—to YouTube!—where the biggest night in Hollywood will sit alongside vertical shorts and the latest episode of Hot Ones… well, talk about a slap in the face.
The news also comes a little more than a week after Netflix announced it had entered into an agreement with Warner Brothers to purchase the storied movie and TV studio, the home of such cinema classics as Casablanca, the Wizard of Oz, All the President’s Men, Goodfellas, the Harry Potter movies, Game of Thrones, and of course, the Police Academy saga.
The one-two punch of Warners being gobbled up by Netflix (assuming federal regulators approve the deal, which is still a big “if” at this point) and the Oscars going to streaming will surely be seen as twin death knells for the motion picture industry, even if the latter development is more symbolic than the former.
Of course, the truth is that the Oscars had made the move to YouTube long ago, in the form of viral videos. How many of us watched “The Slap” on the actual broadcast? Not me. Nope, I saw it on YouTube, and same goes for the Ellen DeGeneres selfie, Jennifer Lawrence tripping on the steps on her way to the podium, and so on.
In retrospect, the Academy Awards moving to YouTube isn’t that shocking after all. Heck, maybe it’s simply fitting.