The organization that bestows the Academy Awards says it is suspending plans to award a new Oscar for popular films at the 2019 ceremony amid widespread backlash to the idea.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says it will further study plans for the category. It wrote in a statement that it recognized that implementing a new award three quarters of the way into the year creates challenges for films that have already been released.
The film academy announced the new category for "outstanding achievement in popular film" last month. There were immediate questions about what the criteria would be for a "popular film" and many inside and outside the film industry wondered how it would impact critically and commercially popular films such as "Black Panther." The superhero blockbuster has been cited as a possible best picture contender.
"There has been a wide range of reactions to the introduction of a new award, and we recognize the need for further discussion with our members," the academy's CEO, Dawn Hudson, said in a statement.
The 91st annual Oscars will be held Feb. 24 in Los Angeles. The ceremony will undergo some changes this year, with the academy planning to shorten the ceremony to three hours. In order to do so, it plans to hand out Oscars in six to eight categories during commercial breaks.
The academy still plans to shorten the awards season by moving up the 2020 Oscars a few weeks to Feb. 9, 2020.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More