The Acad­e­my is get­ting into stream­ing – and that could be good news

It’s a year of change on mul­ti­ple fronts for the Acad­e­my Awards, from the renam­ing of For­eign Film as Inter­na­tion­al Film to the ongo­ing Net­flix ques­tion. But today, a more tech­ni­cal alter­ation to Oscar pro­to­col could have far-reach­ing and out­ward-fac­ing con­se­quences down the line.

The Hol­ly­wood Reporter has the sto­ry that The Acad­e­my of Motion Pic­ture Arts and Sci­ences will tran­si­tion away from the stacks upon stacks of phys­i­cal DVD screen­ers annu­al­ly mailed to mem­bers of the assort­ed vot­ing bod­ies, instead tak­ing the screen­er-review process online. A state-of-the-art new web site will allow AMPAS vot­ers to check out eli­gi­ble films at their own leisure in the com­fort of their own homes.

An ear­li­er ver­sion of the web site offered this option, albeit with a much small­er library of titles and a more dif­fi­cult-to-use inter­face. The new ver­sion will offer a more com­pre­hen­sive list­ing – Net­flix, Sony, Focus, and oth­ers have already begun to e‑peddle their e‑wares – and a less bug­gy user experience.

This may sound like Hol­ly­wood minu­ti­ae, but it could have a per­cep­ti­ble effect on which sorts of movies get seen and nom­i­nat­ed. It’s no secret that AMPAS’ vot­ing bloc is made up pri­mar­i­ly of old­er sorts, who gen­er­al­ly pre­fer in-per­son the­atri­cal screen­ings to pop­ping a DVD in the player.

Expect­ing the less tech-friend­ly to fig­ure out how to log in and use a web site seems like­ly to cut down on view­er­ship for online-only fea­tures. Though at the same time, hav­ing an instant trea­sure trove of avail­able view­ing may lead to height­ened expo­sure among those younger and more computer-savvy.

Every year, the Oscars announce an inten­tion to get lean­er and younger, and this rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant step in that very direc­tion. But the real poten­tial of the switch-up comes from the poten­tial for the Acad­e­my to mon­i­tor who’s watched what. I would love noth­ing more than a post-mortem data-based report reveal­ing what per­cent­age of the vot­ing total actu­al­ly took the time to watch each selec­tion – inevitably telling stuff.