Oscars show to go hostless this year

LOSANGELES: This year’s Oscar ceremony will go ahead without an official host for only the second time in its history, an ABC television executive said on Tuesday.

Speaking just three weeks before the highest honours in the movie industry are handed out, ABC entertainment president Karey Burke said the February 24 event would forgo a host and “just have presenters host the Oscars”.

ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co televises the Oscars ceremony annually and is closely involved in planning the telecast.

Comedian Kevin Hart in December stepped down from hosting the Oscars after past homophobic tweets resurfaced. No replacement was announced but there had been no official statements on how the ceremony would proceed.

The Oscars ceremony has gone without a host only once before in its 91-year history, in 1989.

Burke said the decision was taken after what she called “the messiness” over Hart’s withdrawal.

“After that, it was pretty clear that we were going to stay the course and just have presenters host the Oscars. We all got on board with that idea pretty quickly,” Burke told reporters at the Television Critics Association meeting in Los Angeles.

She said the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organises the Oscars, had promised ABC last year to keep the telecast to three hours.

“So the producers, I think, decided wisely to not have a host and to go back to having the presenters and the movies being the stars,” Burke said.

The Oscars host traditionally opens the ceremony with a comedic monologue focusing on celebrities, the state of the movie industry as well as cultural and political issues.