Going without a host worked last year, so the Oscars will just do it again in 2020

By Sam Barsanti | January 8, 2020 | 11:09pm

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Going without a host worked last year, so the Oscars will just do it again in 2020

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About a year ago to the day, the only thing anyone in the world could talk about was the ongoing drama surrounding the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences’ complete inability to find an Oscar host. After an exhausting search that involved literally everyone on the planet, the Academy finally settled on Kevin Hart, a very famous comedian who had probably never said anything offensive on social media—or so the Academy incorrectly assumed. Hart backed out of of the gig after refusing to delete some homophobic tweets, and a whole month later, the Academy decided it would just go without a host for only the second time in history.

Well, get ready for history to be made for a third time, because The Hollywood Reporter says ABC Entertainment president Karey Burke (whose network airs the Oscars) announced today that the Oscars will once again be going without a host. This is where things start to get a little shaky: Not having a host was the obvious choice last year, but now the Academy’s reasoning for it seems a little questionable. As THR explains, last year’s Oscars ceremony got much higher ratings than previous years (especially 2018, which was apparently an “all-time low” for the show), and so it seems like Burke is hoping that going without a host again will mean more good ratings.

Of course, it could be argued that the reason so many people tuned in last year was because they wanted to see if the Oscars would end up being a disaster without a host, and now that everyone knows that it worked pretty well (not counting Green Book winning best picture, which wouldn’t have been stopped by a host anyway), they might not care. We won’t know for sure until the actual Academy Awards are handed out on February 9.

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