Academy reverses its decision; to air all Oscar awards live

After facing severe backlash at its decision to not showcase four out of the 24 awards, including cinematography and editing, live on air, the Academy has reversed its decision and said now that these awards will not be handed out in the commercial breaks.

In a short note by the officers of the Board of Governors of The Academy, it said, 

"The Academy has heard the feedback from its membership regarding the Oscar presentation of four awards - Cinematography, Film Editing, Live Action Short, and Makeup and Hairstyling. All Academy Awards will be presented without edits, in our traditional format. We look forward to Oscar Sunday, February 24."

The Academy had decided to adopt this new format in an effort to shorten the length of the show that ran 3 hours and 53 minutes last year. According to the Academy, all these four branches had volunteered to take part in the new format this year, which would have been first of a series of yearly rotations that would ensure at least four different categories would be presented in the same way in 2020 too.

Following the controversial announcement on Monday, an open letter to the Academy and show producers Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss was posted, calling on the Academy to reverse its plans. It was signed by more than 200 cinematographers, 75 directors including Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron and Spike Lee, 80 actors including Bradley Copper, Glenn Close and Emma Stone, as well as members of other branches such as producers, editors and VFX supervisors.