Film Academy CEO defends Oscar changes: "Every category will be celebrated on our live broadcast"

Deadline

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences CEO Dawn Hudson is forging ahead with the 94th Academy Awards changes, despite the backlash to announcing eight categories before the show and showing the pre-taped acceptance speeches during the live broadcast. Noting that there was "more urgency for this year’s show," Hudson said: “We thought how do we preserve our values which are have all 23 awards on the show, but still allow for a three-hour show that the TV audience wants to tune into, and other ways to celebrate movies within that show? And we looked at a lot of different ideas of taking categories, and doing like the Emmys, and presenting them on another night, or another way. But, we thought If we can be the most respectful to all of our nominees and winners, how do we do that? And so, this year, a critical year where we knew we had to make changes, we worked out this plan.”