Oscars latest: Who should win – and what’s inside nominees’ unofficial £260k goodie bags
Oscars latest: Who should win – and what’s inside nominees’ unofficial £260k goodie bags
As the 100th anniversary of the Oscars approaches, stars including Jessie Buckley, Michael B Jordan, Timothee Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio and Emma Stone will gather at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood for the ceremony later today. Sky News is live from Los Angeles, tracking the event’s developments in real time.
Soon, the Oscars’ format will evolve significantly. Beginning in 2029, the 101st edition will shift from ABC to YouTube, marking a major change after decades of traditional broadcasting. This move will grant the video-sharing platform exclusive global access to the awards, including the red carpet and Governors Ball afterparty, for a five-year period.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finalized the deal with Google-owned YouTube at the end of last year. “We are thrilled to enter into a multifaceted global partnership with YouTube to be the future home of the Oscars and our year-round academy programming,” said Academy chief executive Bill Kramer and president Lynette Howell Taylor.
Despite a five-year high of 19.7 million viewers last year, ABC’s reach still lags behind the show’s historic peak of 57 million in 1998. The network has hosted the Oscars for nearly its entire history, with NBC briefly taking over from 1971 to 1975. Since 1961, the Academy has been broadcasting the event exclusively on ABC.
It’s just after 11:30am in Los Angeles, and the Sky News Oscars team is finalizing their coverage prep. On-camera correspondent Katie Spencer is undergoing a professional glam session at the hotel before heading to her assigned position. The team’s behind-the-scenes efforts include consultations with experts like hair stylist Melissa and makeup artist Naisha.
“For Katie, we’re going old-school Hollywood with waves,” explains Melissa, who has styled A-listers like Jennifer Lopez and Ariana Grande. “These can be long days, so you kind of have to power through the entire weekend.”
“I love doing red carpet looks,” adds Naisha, who has been in the makeup industry for nearly a decade. “I’m thinking a brown, smoky eye for Katie. I don’t like to do black because it feels too heavy, and it’s still light out.”
Gold Derby, a Los Angeles-based organization with over 25 years of expertise, shared insights this week. Their forecasts are based on input from pundits, insiders and fans, making them a trusted source for Oscar predictions. Editor-in-chief Debra Birnbaum noted that this year’s race is unusually dynamic.
“Usually, it gets kind of boring by this point,” Birnbaum remarked. “We have all the precursor awards and at this point by the Oscars you’ve often seen the same people make the same speeches, and you know who’s gonna win.”
This year, however, stands out. “This time, the only person I would say I feel reasonably confident about is Jessie Buckley,” Birnbaum stated. “It’s really been a crazy awards season, pretty unprecedented, and that’s what makes it really exciting. We haven’t seen a race like this in a lot of years. I think pretty much anything can happen on Oscar night.”
Gold Derby’s analysis highlights Buckley’s strong position, with a 96.97% chance of victory. The Hamnet star is the sole acting nominee to secure all four major awards: Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Critics’ Choice and Actor Awards. This track record fuels experts’ confidence. “It’s a transformative performance, the kind of role award voters love to recognize,” Birnbaum added. “She has consistently won every award… and no one has ever won all the precursor awards and then lost the Oscar, except Russell Crowe in 2002.”
