How ABC and the Academy would handle a postponed or canceled Oscar ceremony

Deadline

The Academy Awards are about 10 months away, but Deadline has learned what would happen if the coronavirus crisis forced a delay or cancelation. According to an Academy document, the first option is to delay the ceremony, says Deadline's Michael Cieply. "But tougher is what happens if the show is neither postponed nor exhibited, perhaps just scratched," he says. "In that case, ABC pays any out-of-pocket costs incurred by the Academy, but is refunded any payments beyond the money spent. More complicated is a scenario under which the Academy produces a show, yet ABC is somehow prevented from exhibiting it. In that situation, the Academy, says the document, 'has the right to specify that ABC exhibit the Academy Awards Show on a one-time basis within 90 days' of the ceremony, while continuing to pay its full guarantee under the contract. Good for the Academy; perhaps less so for ABC, which could be stuck airing a three-month-old ceremony. If, by contrast, the Academy doesn’t exercise its right to delayed exhibition of a show—perhaps if the ceremony turns into a private dinner, like the Governors Awards?–ABC only has to 'pay the Academy an agreed upon amount for the reimbursement of certain but not all costs of production,' and gets to keep or recover any additional fees that may have been paid for the unaired show."