Two Original Song Performances Cut from Oscars Broadcast
In a Variety exclusive late on Friday, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences announced that they had dumped two of the five scheduled performances of the Best Original Song nominees from this Sunday’s upcoming telecast. Ordinarily, the news that the notoriously lengthy Oscar ceremony would be shortened in any way at all would be cause for celebration, but the particulars of this decision should give readers pause. It’s true that the song performances can be the most time-consuming parts of the show, and though they’re definitely the least necessary, it’s some real bull-tonky that the show would appear only to cut the performances without adequate star-power behind them.