Oscars will have no official host this year

LOS ANGELES: 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 oscars, ABC entertainment president Karey Burke said the 24 February 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 the Hart withdrawal and an attempt to revive his chances.

“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 the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena.

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—about 30 minutes shorter than in recent years.