Looks as if the 2014 Winter Olympics could nudge the Oscars into March Madness. Since the Olympics in Sochi, Russia next year run from Friday, February 7 through Sunday, Feb 23rd, Oscars’ comfortable Sunday slot would clash with the Olympics closing night ceremony. It’s unlikely if not impossible for the entire awards season to shift everything 2 weeks earlier, so the next available Sunday open for Oscar Night would be March 2, 2014. The LATimes says conflicts are already causing a crunch for the SAG Awards.
“We programmed the SAG Awards on Saturday, Jan. 18 due to the Winter Olympics and NFL schedules, which are contributing to a shortened 2014 award season,” said a spokesperson for TNT/TBS, which broadcasts the awards show. The 2014 Super Bowl is scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 2.
The question now is whether the SAG move will have a ripple effect on the Golden Globes and Oscars. The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. has yet to announce its 2014 date for the Golden Globes, but that ceremony historically takes place before the SAG Awards.
The Academy moved the Oscar telecast from March to late February in 2004, but every four years the Olympics get in the way. In 2010, the Oscars aired March 7.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hasn’t announced a 2014 date, either. T
It’s Gold vs Gold.. Winter Olympics 2014 and Oscar both are huge event in industry and different benchmark for participants. But It seems good when Oscar understand the standard of Winter Olympics and ready to extend date.
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Should be in January, I agree Colin.
It would be nice if all awards shows just started and ended in January.
This has happened every four years since they moved to February. It’s not news.
This has happened every four years since they moved to February. It’s not news.
You’re lost. This isn’t the site that only posts things YOU care about. I’d link you to your own blog if you had one.
You should just stay away from all media outlets on March 9th, ok? Otherwise you’re gonna be really aggravated by all the reminders about setting your clock up an hour to Spring Forward.
Why all this fuss over pushing the date WEEKS away? Why not just DAYS? The Oscars did used to be on Monday night (up until 1998) so why not push the telecast forward one day or even back to Friday or Saturday? I like Saturday. That way anyone watching the telecast can stay up and watch the whole thing and not have to be dragging for work the next morning. It’s just a thought.
17 of the last 25 Oscar ceremonies have taken place in March.
Ryan and Sasha: could you guys make a piece about the effect of the Olympics and Oscarnominees and Oscarwinners? Could the list of winners be different if the ceremony was not held in March? Thinking of 2010, 2006, 2002, 1998, 1994, 1992…
This could actually end up being great for the Oscar season if the Guild Awards are done by mid January and the Oscars aren’t held until March. That would give over a month in between for Oscar voters to get restless, see more films, and maybe make some surprising picks (that’s how Crash upset in 2005 and how Adrien Brody ending up winning for that late Pianist surge in 2002). Had the Oscars been later this year, it’s even possible the Emanuelle Riva momentum could’ve culminated in her wresting Best Actress from Jennifer Lawrence.
Maybe they could lead into the Oscarcast with Blades of Glory and no one would notice.
I whish: 1) The Oscar return to late March date 2) With only 5 works nominated for BP. Called wishfull thinking, but IMO, if this recent season last to March, I can see “Lincoln” and “Zero Dark Thirty” being benefit from that.
The Winter Olympics don’t get world wide coverage like the Summer Olympics which have more popular sports. I don’t get why they want to change the date.
Winter Olympics? Who cares. I’m blaming this in one of them Trilateral Commission plots to divert attention from what’s really important.
They can’t make me Sophie’s Choice between figure skating and Oscar. They can’t! *sobs*
@CMG–I wonder if the results would have been different if it went into March. More momentum for other flicks? More time for backlash to happen to perceived/actual frontrunners?
Yeah, I think it would have “done” a lot to a great deal many who frequent this site.
Since the Oscars seem to have become more reliant on pre-cursors, pushing things back may prevent the so-called fiasco of “snubs/picking the wrong people as nominees for a category.” Less trouble for AMPAS with perceived “oversights”, but perhaps this will result in even less originality as well. What this will do for SAG and perhaps some others will prove more interesting. I wonder if the BAFTAs will be affected by this as well–after all, the Olympics are international.
Could you imagine what this Oscar season would have done to us here if it went to March?
On the bright side of things, it’s gonna be the Winter Olympics first, then the Oscars, and then the 2014 World Cup in Brazil to close a very eventful first half of the year 🙂
Ryan, where is that pervy Olympic image from?
The later the better. It ideally would give Academy members more time before they put in final votes. I mean, it’s not the first time it’s been later than February.
I think it’s just you. Olympics are always a huge thing (Summer or Winter). Not that I’m watching, cause I’m not particularly interested in sports. Movies and music take my time.
You also say it like US is not interested in what(ever) takes place in Russia.
Is it just me or does no one really care about the Winter Olympics? I understand that on a global scale you wouldn’t want two big events going on at the same time, and it could affect the worldwide audience for the Oscars, but at least in the US I don’t think the closing ceremony of the Russian Winter Olympics will prove to be much of an enticement.
As so many of the Oscar contenders premiere so late in the year, and only receive wider release into the new year, the later the better I reckon for Oscar deadlines and timelines.
NBC has a lockbox on the Olympics and they prefer to run everything in primetime, even if everyone knows all of the results.
For London, they did have some nice streaming of events, but it was patchy and often without commenters and ultimately it was disappointing. But for 2014, hopefully they will improve the technology enough that we might get some decent streaming options.
Who is telecasting the Olympics in the USA? ABC or NBC?
Don’t forget that Sochi is something like 8 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, so if they run the closing ceremonies live, they’d be over well before the Oscars would be starting, even if they’re on the same day. In 2010, the Olympics were in Vancouver, i.e. in the same time zone as Hollywood, so there would have been a real clash.
Bill_the_Bear,
But even if there is not a direct simultaneous overlap that Sunday, it’s still too much going on with two 4-hour events on TV back-to-back the same day.