The Critics Choice Awards, or the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards, have pushed their ceremony date up to compete with the early award announcements out of the gate, like the National Board of Review, the New York Film Critics, and the Golden Globes.
The BFCA has made some major changes of late, combining film and television, as the Golden Globes do, and televising their awards show. It’s clear that they have much higher ambitions than simply jotting down a list of the best of the year. This move appears to be so that they can be more “influential” in the awards as opposed to merely matching or predicting the Oscars. Influence is really the key in terms of access and profiting. Perhaps having an earlier broadcast might make their program more watched as excitement grows, before excitement ultimately dims with the repetitive nature of awards season in its later stages.
The BFCA likes to brag that they are the “most like Oscar” of all of the film critics groups. What that means in awards blogger speak is that they tend to match the Academy’s choices. What it means in film critic speak is that they aren’t really critics. Oscar voters aren’t critics either, neither are SAG, PGA or DGA voters. They’re industry professionals. The Critics Choice voters are — I think we can safely say — the least “snobby” of all of the critics groups. They’re lowbrow and tend a little more towards fanboyism (Drive) than the industry does. Now that the Screen Actors Guild has folded in AFTRA though, it will be increasingly difficult to tell the groups apart. Last year put the whole thing to the test – and the Critics Choice, along with SAG, actually did end up predicting and matching the Academy’s choice with Spotlight for Best Picture.
What does it all mean? Well, nothing except that the Critics Choice now, like the Globes, like the New York Film Critics will be too early to be reliable in terms of predicting awards, but might play a strong role in influencing the direction of the race.
How do we reconfigure the Critics Choice? Well, the one good thing about them is that they are the largest voting body of any other group except the guilds. They are at or around 200 or so, compared with around 100 for the Golden Globes and half that for the other big film critics groups. It gives you a slightly better idea of how a consensus might vote. The people in the group are the same people who cover the awards – many of the biggest names in the Oscar coverage industry (except us – we would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like us as a member).
The new date puts them squarely in competition with the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics, who generally are first out of the gate (and seem way too early as it is). Here is a rough timeline sketch:
November 25, 2016 – Golden Globe ballots go out.
November 28, 2016 – Critics Choice ballots go out.
November 30, 2016 – DGA voting begins
December 1, 2016 – Critics Choice nominations.
December 8, 2016 – Critics Choice final ballots go out.
December 9, 2016 – Golden Globe ballots turned in.
December 9, 2016 – Critics Choice ballots due (one day?)
December 11, 2016 – Critics Choice ceremony.
December 12, 2016 – Golden Globe nomination announcement.
December 19, 2016 – Final Globe ballots go out.
January 4, 2017 – Globe ballots turned in.
January 5, 2017 – Oscar ballots go out.
January 8, 2017 – Golden Globe ceremony.
January 9, 2017 – DGA voting ends.
January 12, 2017 – DGA Nominations announced, final voting begins.
January 13, 2017 – Oscar voting closes.
January 24, 2017 – Oscar nominations announced.
February 3, 2017 – DGA voting deadline.
February 4, 2017 – DGA awards.
February 13, 2017 – Oscar final ballots mailed.
February 21, 2017 – Oscar ballots due.
February 26, 2016 – The Oscar ceremony.
“The BFCA and BTJA are very excited about moving the Critics’ Choice Awards from the traditional mid-January date to December. This is the logical time for the Critics’ Choice Awards to be presented in the vanguard of the awards season. The role of critics is to assess new films and television shows and advise the public when they are initially released. So this new date is actually the most appropriate time for our annual year-end assessment of the finest achievements in both media. December 11th will be the first time all of the year’s major award contenders will be gathered together to celebrate the best of the best.” Joey Berlin, president of BFCA and BTJA
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