Oscar Presenters a Closely Guarded Secret

Lets's assume for the moment that you have a vested interest in the Academy Awards. If your favorite film is up for half a dozen awards, will it matter to you if Salma Hayek or Shia LaBeouf will announce the winner for Best Sound Editing? On the flip side, most people just watch to see the stars and have never seen some of the winning films. This year, assuming for the moment that Slumdog Millionaire will win Best Picture, much fewer than one in fifty Americans have checked out the night's big winner, and we probably have the best percentage in the entire world on that film at the moment. So what does Oscar do to keep you interested in the telecast? New producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon think you'll be more inclined to watch if you don't know who's presenting the awards. Yahoo! wrote last week that the stars handing out this year's Academy Awards will be kept a secret. Because the millions of viewers are likely more interested in the celebrities than the films - if that weren't the case, Cineaste would outsell In Touch - keeping their identities a secret might not be the worst strategy. I don't think it will add anything to the event, inasmuch as there won't be a lot of curiosity viewing to see who's on stage, but if you announce the names and people aren't even interested at that point, you're not helping your case. The Oscars need a push; last year's telecast was the lowest-rated Academy Awards ever. Having potential winners like The Dark Knight will certainly help, but I think events like this need to learn to adapt. All the information is now available online on the West Coast as soon as it happens on the East Coast if you're really interested in the results, and three hours is an especially long time to watch if you don't have a dog in the race. There's a chance that keeping the names a secret will break with the tradition of having last year's winners back as presenters, but I kind of like that approach. But by losing the stand-up comedian as the master of ceremonies, going instead for Hugh Jackman, the telecast is probably going to be glitzier, but I'm not sure that makes it any better.