Oscar Ceremony Bans Zoom Acceptances, Requires In-Person Attendance

The producers of this year’s Academy Awards telecast informed nominees that they need to be present at the ceremony to accept their honors on-camera and not by Zoom Video Communications Inc ZM calls.

Unmute, Please: The April 25 telecast will be held at Los Angeles’ Union Station with only nominees, their guests and presenters in attendance. Some segments of the show will originate from Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre.

The telecast’s producers do not wish to repeat the problems that marred the recent Golden Globe Awards show, with nominees sheltered at home and virtually attending via Zoom connections that created multiple distractions and gaffes, most notably when Daniel Kaluuya’s acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor was delivered while his Zoom screen was still muted.

In a letter to the Oscar nominees, the show’s producers — Emmy nominee Jesse Collins (“Zoboomafoo”), Oscar nominee Stacey Sher (“Django Unchained” and “Erin Brockovich”) and Oscar-winner Steven Sonderbergh (best director for 2000’s “Traffic”) — insisted the COVID-19 pandemic health crisis will not interfere with an in-person event.

“We are going to great lengths to provide a safe and enjoyable evening for all of you in person, as well as for all the millions of film fans around the world, and we feel the virtual thing will diminish those efforts,” the letter stated.

“For those of you unable to attend because of scheduling or continued uneasiness about traveling, we want you to know there will not be an option to Zoom in for the show. We are going to great lengths to provide a safe and ENJOYABLE evening for all of you in person, as well as for all the millions of film fans around the world, and we feel the virtual thing will diminish those efforts.”

Walt Disney Co's DIS ABC will air the 93rd annual ceremony.

Who Are You Wearing? The fashion element, which is as much a tradition of the Oscar telecasts as the presentation of the statuettes, was also raised by the producers who did not want a reprise of the Golden Globes’ often-eccentric relaxed sartorial displays, including Jason Sudeikis’ tie-dyed hoodie and Bill Murray’s Hawaiian shirt.

“We’re aiming for a fusion of Inspirational and Aspirational, which in actual words means formal is totally cool if you want to go there, but casual is really not,” the letter stated.

And while the letter did not specifically cite ratings, the Oscar telecast producers arguably do not want to mirror the Golden Globes’ disastrous lack of an audience: Nielsen reported the program saw a year-over-year plummet of 63% of total viewers, falling from 18.4 million in 2020 to 6.9 million for the recent show.

(Photo: Renee Zellweger with her Best Actress Oscar from the 2020 Academy Awards ceremony. Photograph courtesy the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.)