Rethink.

Four months ahead of last year's announcement, the 83rd Annual Academy Awards now has telecast producers . Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak announced late Tuesday. Academy Award-winning producer Bruce Cohen and television producer/director Don Mischer will produce the ceremony. Mischer will pull double duty as telecast director as well. While being involved with the telecast is a first for the gentlemen, they worked together on the Academy’s first Governors Awards last November. “ I fell in love with the Oscars as an eight-year-old kid , the night my grandmothers let me stay up to watch for the first time,” Cohen was quoted in the press release. "We hope to create a show that celebrates what people around the world love about the Academy Awards year after year – the excitement, glamour and tradition of Oscar Night itself.”

As of today, Dec. 15, 2009, we are 10 days away from Christmas and 82 days out from the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. While 82 is not really a momentous milestone number, it seemed appropriate for counting down to next year's ceremony. News has been coming in at a steady pace over the past month from the Academy and instead of individual posts, here is one hardy helping of all the Oscar news you need. We left off last month with the 20 Animated Feature contenders, along with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin being named co-hosts for the telecast. Since then other positions for the telecast have been filled.

As I discussed in a post Thursday , Oscar ceremony ratings hit an all-time low last year . So this year, getting above 32 million viewers didn't seem like a huge challenge. The challenge I hoped the new producers, along with a Hugh Jackman-hosted ceremony, would meet was the 46.2 million threshold, putting the ceremony in the Top 10 for best rated telecasts. Alas, it was an uphill battle. With no "Dark Knight" Best Picture nominations, viewers and film goers were not happy with the snub. And the results are... "Ratings for this year's Academy Awards improved substantially over last year and are the highest for any TV show (sports excluded) in two years ," according to Zap2It.com . ABC says an average of 36.3 million people watched the 81st annual Oscars on Sunday , making it the most-watched entertainment program of the season and bigger than any other entertainment program since the 2007 Oscars' 40.17 million viewers. The adults 18-49 rating was up, to...

Recent ratings for the Academy Awards have been - to say the least - abysmal , a downward trend of bad to worse. Ratings for last year's ceremony were the lowest ever, according to Nielsen figures, and down nearly 20 percent from the year before. ABC’s showing of the 80th Annual Academy Awards attracted 32 million viewers . The broadcast lasted from 8:30 to 11:38 p.m. ET ( Source ). The 2003 ceremony was Oscar's previous low, with 33 million viewers ( Source ). An average of 39.9 million people watched the 79th annual Academy Awards two years ago, an improvement of one million viewers from the year before but still down from the '04 and '05 shows. "The Departed" took home the Best Picture Oscar. Ellen DeGeneres hosted; the show ran about three hours and 50 minutes -- the longest Oscarcast since the 2002 show, which stretched to more than four hours ( Source ). According to a study by Nielsen Preview , Academy Awards viewership correlates directly with the b...