The Academy Awards will have a new ‘fan favourite’ category this year, possibly as a response to a decline in viewership in the recent past.

The new category comes after several blockbuster hits, including ‘No Time To Die’ and ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, failed to earn Oscar nominations, jeopardizing the award show’s viewership by fans of the films. 

In the category, any film released in 2021 can be voted for via the Twitter hashtag #OscarsFanFavourite, or through the award show’s official website. The film that garners the highest amount of votes by March 3 will be recognized during the telecast of the award show. 

Furthermore, three Twitter users who cast their votes between February 14 to March 3 will be invited to an all-expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles to present an Oscar award at the following ceremony in 2023.

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“We’re thrilled to partner with Twitter to help build an engaged and excited digital audience leading up to this year’s ceremony. Through these activations, social media users around the world now have more opportunities to engage with the show in real time, find a community and be a part of the experience in ways they’ve never been able to before,” Meryl Johnson, the Academy’s vice president of digital marketing, told The Hollywood Reporter. 

Sarah Rosen, Twitter’s head of U.S. entertainment and news partnerships, added, “Twitter is the place to be during award shows and the Oscars are one of the biggest conversation drivers every year. The idea that a movie fan might see their tweet during the Oscars broadcast is pretty epic, and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with the Academy to bring this to life.”

The 94th Academy Awards will be telecasted on March 27, 2022. 

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Television ratings for the Academy Awards have seen a steep decline in the recent past. After last year’s awards laid emphasis on smaller cinematic works such as best picture awardee ‘Nomadland’, viewership fell to 10 million, which is a 56% decline from the year 2020.