March 15 was one of the entertainment industry’s biggest nights, with all the famous and prominent gathering in Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre for the 98th Academy Awards. 

The night was one of several firsts. “Sinners” received 16 nominations, breaking the previous record of 14 held by the films “La La Land,” “Titanic” and “All about Eve,” but also setting the record for most nominations lost at 12. 

The evening also debuted a new category, the Academy Award for Best Casting, which was awarded to Cassandra Kulukundis for “One Battle After Another.” In a surprising twist, the Oscar for Live Action Short Film was awarded to both “The Singers” and “Two People Exchanging Saliva,” the first tie since 2013. Meanwhile, Jessie Buckley became the first Irish woman to win Best Actress with her work in “Hamnet.”

Conan O’Brien hosted the event for the second year in a row. While delivering his typical style of humor, he also kept away from any jokes too scathing or political. Despite 17.9 million people tuning in for the live stream, viewership was still down 9% from last year.

However, streaming numbers may no longer be a relevant statistic for engagement, as social media impressions were up and videos on the Academy’s social media platforms received millions of views. Reflecting this changing viewership, the Academy Awards will transition from broadcast to a YouTube live stream in 2029.

In a highly criticized move, several winners were cut off mid-speech, either because the microphone was turned off or because the orchestra started playing over them loudly. Theoretically, the Oscars operate under the rule that any speech over 45 seconds risks being cut off. There seems to be some concessions made for the bigger awards, as Best Actress Jessie Buckley and Best Actor Michael B. Jordan both spoke for almost three minutes uninterrupted. 

Clocking in at three hours, the Academy Awards are admittedly a lengthy show and have to keep up the pace to stay on time. Yet in an effort to make the show more watchable, skits introduced by the presenters ended up taking away time from the actual Oscar winners. 

Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans presented the Oscars for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay, but spent several minutes on a lackluster comedy skit. Later, several actresses from “Bridesmaids” spent nearly six minutes in a tribute to the 15th anniversary of the film, before presenting the awards for Best Original Score and Best Sound.    

Some categories result in multiple people coming up onstage, and the winners will take brief turns at giving their acceptance speeches. But when “Golden” won for Best Original Song, the mic was cut after just one person spoke, and the broadcast went to commercial break. 

There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with an award show that will not allow the winners adequate time to accept their awards. The whole point of an award show is to honor and recognize the talent and craftsmanship in the movie industry; instead, winners are rushed along in search of viewership and engagement.