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Jimmy Kimmel To Host Oscars 2017: Will There Be Another Cool Kimmel After-Party?

By Ven Lanyon
Published on: 07:16 PST, Dec 5, 2016

The Oscars 2017 are coming! With the awards night less than three months away, preparations are moving into high gear. A big piece of the puzzle is reportedly in place now, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The host for the 2017 Oscars will be Jimmy Kimmel.

Some Oscar fans aren’t impressed by the choice. Mark Dice tweeted that the Academy has decided to stop asking comedians to host. Ouch!

https://twitter.com/MarkDice/status/805845343829041153

Jimmy doesn’t seem to mind the haters and joked about the possibility that his hosting gig might be an Oscar prank.

The entertainment world has endured “a long wait” to find out who will host the 89th Oscar show next year, which will be broadcast live on ABC on February 26, 2017.

Kimmel is “set to host,” but the official announcement is yet to come from producers Jennifer Todd and Michael De Luca. Todd is new to the Oscar scene, and only joined the production team for the “high-profile event” in November of 2016.

The Oscar gig is a big deal for Kimmel, and the 2017 Oscars will be his first as a host. According to Variety, Jimmy was on the “long list” early in the selection process, when Deluca and Todd were first put in charge of the gala show.

Having Kimmel’s name on the list didn’t necessarily mean anything, though, because but so many others were still under consideration.

“Everybody’s on the table right now. Like we said, we’re still in our kitchen sink [stage]. Jimmy included. But we’ll get there soon.”

Kimmel was a good bet to win out in the Oscar host stakes. He’s had a ton of experience hosting similar shows, including the 2007 ESPYS, the 2012 and 2016 Emmy Awards, and ABC’s American Music Awards, which the comedian hosted five times.

The Jimmy Kimmel Live! star “won raves” after his 2016 Emmy Awards gig, and the ABC chief gave “Kimmel a big endorsement” for that performance.

“We thought Jimmy elevated the Emmys,” said Sherwood.

ABC has a stake in the success of the Oscars, and since Kimmel is their enormously successful “marquee late-night host,” it makes total sense that they would want to put him in charge of making the night special. The Alphabet Network has a “growing influence” over the Academy and the Oscars after signing a “new $75 million deal” that’s good until August of 2028.

Officially, decisions about the Oscars are still mostly up to the Academy, but there’s no question that “the network has long wanted more say in how the show is produced.” Making Kimmel the 2017 Oscars host could be a way to make sure ABC gets more say.

The network head “publicly urged the Academy” to hand over the Oscars, considered the to be the “granddaddy of all awards shows,” to Kimmel, after his stellar job at the Emmys.

“We thought Jimmy has earned it, and we’re very hopeful that Jimmy will get [the Oscar hosting gig].”

There’s some concern about whether Jimmy will be able to turn around a possible trend of falling audience numbers. Even his fantastic work on the Emmys saw a lower-than-usual audience at only 11.3 million viewers tuning in.

Chris Rock’s Oscars a year ago also saw a drop in the numbers, with the lowest number of watchers in 11 years. The relatively small Oscar audience of 34.3 million viewers was still three times the number of Kimmel’s Emmy viewers.

For some fans, the Oscar audience numbers aren’t all that important. What matters is that Kimmel runs another episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live: After the Oscars with a cool after-party.

https://twitter.com/chrisisinnoho/status/805827396095987712

What do you think? Is Jimmy Kimmel the right choice to host the 2017 Oscars?

[Featured Image by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]

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