The Oscars Will Be Hostless Again This Year

In a move surprising no one after Ricky Gervais was such a crowd-pleasing hit at the Golden Globes, ABC announced today that the 92nd Academy Awards will not have a host for the second year in a row.

Karey Burke of ABC confirmed the news today at ABC’s executive sessions at the bi-annual Television Critics Association meeting in Los Angeles. Burke shared: “We’re extremely proud of how the show turned out creatively. We’re not messing with that format, to the best of our abilities.”

You may recall that last year the Oscars were pretty much forced to go host-free after announced host Kevin Hart stepped down from the gig after some controversial older tweets were uncovered, and a media firestorm erupted. No one really wanted the Oscars gig before that anyway, with host after host fumbling the assignment.

Instead of a host, last year the show opened with a medley from Queen and a comedy set from Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph. That change was delightful, and the shorter, unhosted show drew the highest ratings for the Oscars in years. This seemed to hail a new trend in awards shows, with the Emmysgoing similarly hostless…and hitting an all-time ratings low.

Some thought that the Golden Globes bringing Gervais back meant the trend wouldn’t stick, but after Gervais managed to insult all of Hollywood and not actually be funny before retreating to make surly introductions and not do much else, he simply proved how unimportant, and even annoying, a host can be. Or maybe he just proved how bad a host can be.

Long gone are the days when Billy Crystal would open the show with a brilliant musical number skewering all the nominees. We just don’t watch shows like that anymore and the Oscar nominees are often mostly movies the mainstream audience hasn’t seen. As the Oscars have become more niche, the show has become harder to host and less interesting for a large audience to watch. It’s tough.

We’ll certainly be tuning in for the show, no matter what, but it will be interesting to see how the rating will play out this year. Did 2019 get a bump because people wanted to see what would happen with no host or was it the start of an upward trend? We’ll know February 9th when the Oscars air on ABC.

(via: Deadline, Image: VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images)

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