Hollywood’s biggest annual advertisement for itself — the Academy Awards broadcast — now can carry commercials for movies themselves.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences board voted to allow commercials for movies to air on the Oscar telecast for the first time starting with the Feb. 22 ceremony on ABC, academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger said Wednesday.
The vote Tuesday night lifts a ban on movie advertising that had been in place since the Oscars hit the airwaves in the early 1950s.
“This is an opportunity for there to be more entertainment content about movies in a show that’s celebrating movies,” Unger said.
The new rules will allow one spot per movie distributor during the Oscar show, and they must not have aired elsewhere previously. Commercials can promote only movies opening no earlier than the end of April, two months after the Oscars.
Studios also will not be allowed to use the terms Academy Awards or Oscars in them, and the commercials can promote only one movie, not a slate of films.
The ad ban had been in place for appearance’s sake, so viewers would not get the impression that studios paying for commercial time had any direct role in picking Oscar winners.
Oscar recipients are chosen through balloting by the 6,000-member academy, which includes actors, directors, writers, studio executives and other Hollywood professionals.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More