Awards Shows Are Inundating Oscar

By ROBERT W. WELKOS

Sept. 4, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Each year, the Academy Awards season seems to drag on longer and longer as Hollywood stages one black-tie gala after another to honor the year’s best achievements in film. The pre-Oscar buzz generated by these star-studded affairs has given shows such as the Golden Globe Awards a status and influence that can affect the Academy Awards race.

Now, the American Film Institute is planning to launch its own prime-time televised awards show Jan. 5 on CBS--two weeks before the Golden Globes on NBC--in a move that is likely to kick-start the Oscar race even sooner.

Called “AFI Awards 2001,” the show--to be announced today by the AFI--will mark the first time the institute names its choices for top film of the year, along with best actor, actress, director and other categories.

Meanwhile, a group representing the nation’s broadcast film critics plans to upgrade its annual Critics’ Choice Awards luncheon to a full-blown gala dinner, which will be taped for airing sometime in January by the E! Entertainment cable network.

The proliferation of awards shows is becoming a concern for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which will host next year’s Oscar extravaganza March 24 live on ABC.

“It would be nice to think of ourselves as the climax to a series of playoffs,” said Bruce Davis, the academy’s executive director. “But the fact is that these awards tend to involve the same films, the same people presenting them, the same people receiving them, and I think we would be naive to think that the specialness of our event wasn’t being eroded by the proliferation of these early-year film award shows.

“You don’t want to get into a battle about it and tell people you can’t come on our show if they go on another show,” he added, “but you hope, at some point, that potential presenters themselves may begin to worry about overexposure.”

Awards From AFI Likely to Be Coveted

Because of the AFI’s high profile in the industry, its awards are likely to be coveted by filmmakers and actors. But AFI Director Jean Picker Firstenberg said it was for others to decide what impact the awards would have on the Oscar race, saying, “I don’t think [the awards show] infringes on anyone else in the community at all.”

Pointing out that many AFI members belong to the academy as well, Firstenberg said: “From the AFI’s point of view, what we are trying to do is identify what has occurred over the past year and put it into a historic context to understand what it means for the future. . . . This is not a peer award, it’s not a craft award, it’s not a critic’s award, it’s not a historian’s award. It’s a cross-section of the communities that have devoted their life to this art form.”

Still, one only has to look at the success of the Golden Globes to see why the AFI or the critics group might be tempted to get a television deal. Now in their 59th year, the Globes are decided by 90 voting members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., journalists writing for overseas publications. The nonprofit association has reaped a fortune in television revenue since the show began being broadcast on NBC.

Joey Berlin, who heads the 155-member Broadcast Film Critics Assn., is not shy about his goal to turn the Critics’ Choice Awards, now in its seventh year, into a rival of the Golden Globes.

“Our plan from Day One is that by the 10th year, we would be on a par with the Globes insofar as notoriety and influence [are concerned]. I think we are on schedule,” Berlin said. “I think what the Golden Globes have done is they’ve positioned themselves beautifully to influence the Academy Awards and, to their credit, they have created the greatest party of the year in the film business. But I think the importance of the Golden Globes is wildly overestimated.”

So far, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. doesn’t seem especially concerned about the competition. “We don’t lose much sleep over it,” said association Vice President Lorenzo Soria, who writes for the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

Already, television is glutted with awards shows. They include not only the Oscars, Golden Globes, Grammys, Emmys and Tonys, but also the People’s Choice Awards, American Music Awards, MTV Music Video Awards, MTV Movie Awards, Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, Latin Grammys, Daytime Emmy Awards, Soul Train Awards, Country Music Assn. Awards, and the list goes on and on.

Networks, Public Love Awards Shows

Tom O’Neil, who wrote a book on TV awards shows and hosts the awards Web site https://www.goldderby.com, believes that despite an explosion of such shows in recent years, the networks and the public still seem enamored with them.

“Right now, there are more than three dozen show business awards in prime time between December and April,” O’Neil said. “There is an awards show on once a week. . . . I don’t know at what point we’re going to hit the saturation point, but it doesn’t seem that the public can get enough of these.”

O’Neil said the networks like awards shows because they are inexpensive to produce--the networks don’t have to pay the talent--and there is an element of suspense that hooks viewers. “It’s show business without a script,” he said.

Of all the organizations to plunge into the pre-Oscar swirl, the most intriguing newcomer is the AFI, a nonprofit organization whose members range from the public to many prominent rising and veteran members of the film and television community.

The AFI is dedicated to training future filmmakers, preserving old movies and, once a year, hosting a star-studded Life Achievement Awards show honoring film artists whose work has stood the test of time, such as James Cagney, Bette Davis, Henry Fonda and John Ford.

For four years, the institute has hosted a TV program called “AFI’s 100 Years. . . .” The first show, which named the 100 greatest movies of all time, provoked a raging debate over films left off the list.

Last year, the AFI decided that it should not only look back on America’s great cinematic heritage but provide a year-by-year almanac of today’s best movies. As a result, the institute launched a program in which a jury named the five “significant moments” in film in 2000, while also naming two of director Steven Soderbergh’s movies--”Traffic” and “Erin Brockovich”--among the 10 best films of the year.

The AFI awards show in January will be hosted by a still-unnamed star and will be televised live from the Beverly Hills Hotel. In addition to a countdown of the year’s top 10 films, culminating in the selection of the year’s top film, the AFI Awards also will honor television, with awards for the best drama and comedy series as well as movies or miniseries and best actors in each of those categories.

‘Significant Moments’ of Year to Be Chosen

The nominees for films and TV will be selected by two 13-member panels consisting of AFI trustees, industry professionals, scholars and critics. They will also choose what they think are the “significant moments” of the year in movies and television.

From there, the nominations will be placed on a secret ballot and sent to a jury of 100 film and television experts, with the winners announced during the Jan. 5 telecast.

Meanwhile, E! plans to telecast the Critics’ Choice Awards on a date to be determined, but network officials say it will probably be in late January.

“We love awards,” said John Rieber, senior vice president for original programming at E! Entertainment Television. “We own the red carpet before the show starts and backstage when it’s over.”

E! aired the previous Critics’ Choice Awards in February, but it was only a luncheon. The one planned for January will be upgraded to a gala dinner.

David Sheehan, entertainment editor at KCBS-TV Channel 2 News in Los Angeles and a member of the broadcast critics association, said the Critics’ Choice Awards are receiving more respect and attracting bigger stars every year.

Putting the show on E!, he said, “just gives a different perspective [from other awards shows]. I guess we hope it’s refreshing and not redundant.”

Davis, the academy’s executive director, noted that when the Oscars were first broadcast on TV in the 1950s, the public rarely saw a star except as a character in a movie.

“Stars are now on nighttime talk shows, the various kinds of syndicated shows [such as Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight]. It’s very easy to get tired of seeing movie stars,” he said. “That element of real specialness that used to fire the Academy Awards . . . has completely gone out of our lives.”

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Award Proliferation

The following is a list of some of the entertainment awards shows, both televised and untelevised, throughout the year:

Academy Awards

Emmy Awards

Grammy Awards

Tony Awards

Golden Globe Awards

Screen Actors Guild Awards

Directors Guild of America Awards

Writers Guild of America Awards

Critics’ Choice Awards