LOS ANGELES — The most unpopular move the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences may have ever made was reversed on Thursday: The next Academy Awards will not add a category for achievement in “popular” films after all. 
 
 But the concept may not be completely dead. 
 
 “There has been a wide range of reactions to the introduction of a new award, and we recognize the need for further discussion with our members,” Dawn Hudson, the academy’s chief executive, said in a statement. 
 
 Ms. Hudson emphasized in a subsequent telephone interview that the academy was not abandoning its effort to “honor excellence across a wider scope of films.” 
 
 “We’ve had a lot of positive comments from members about that principle,” she added. 
 
 The creation of the category, announced last month and rooted in an attempt to increase ratings for the Oscars telecast, prompted swift and severe blowback from the public and some members of the academy. In rushing out the news, the academy did not provide details about what would constitute a “popular” film, further inflaming the situation. ||||| Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The move was seen as a bid to improve dwindling television audiences 
 
 The organisers of the Oscars have announced they have postponed plans to introduce a new popular film category at their annual awards ceremony. 
 
 The award, which could have recognised films popular with audiences but not critics, was only announced last month. 
 
 In a statement, the Academy's CEO said she had "recognised the need for further discussion" with its members about the proposal first. 
 
 It was set to be introduced at the 91st Oscars in February 2019. 
 
 "The Academy recognized that implementing any new award nine months into the year creates challenges for films that have already been released," it said in statement. 
 
 It also added that its board of governors would continue to discuss the matter, and will "examine and seek additional input regarding this category". 
 
 After its announcement, the category drew praise from the public on social media but received a backlash from some in Hollywood. 
 
 It was widely suggested the move was a bid to improve dwindling television audiences for the event, rather than recognising artistic merit. 
 
 Image copyright Marvel Studios Image caption It was hoped the category could recognise box office hits like Black Panther 
 
 Viewing figures for the Academy Awards have been falling in recent years - with the 2018 viewing figures 39% down on 2014's. 
 
 In previous years, films which have done well at the box office with audiences - including Mamma Mia, Avatar and the Mission Impossible franchise - have been snubbed by the Academy. 
 
 The Oscars' organisers did not elaborate in their August announcement how eligibility for the new category would have been established. 
 
 Some Hollywood critics suggested the new category's "popular" tag was confusing and could risk creating a two-tier system among films. 
 
 It was feared films praised by critics and audiences alike, such as Dunkirk and Get Out, would risk being relegated to the new category rather than standing a chance in the prestigious Best Film award category. ||||| The award was to have been introduced at the 91st Oscars. 
 
 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is postponing the introduction of the new “popular” Oscar category it had intended to introduce at its upcoming 91st Academy Awards on Feb. 24. 
 
 The Academy announced Thursday, following a special meeting of the board of governors on Wednesday morning, that it is shelving the idea for the moment and will not launch the proposed new award at the next Oscar show, but it said it will continue to discuss the idea for the new award and "will examine and seek additional input regarding the new category." The announcement explained that implementing the new award nine months into the year "created challenges for films that have already been released." The Academy did not provide any timeline for when further details about the new award might be decided. 
 
 “There has been a wide range of reactions to the introduction of a new award, and we recognize the need for further discussion with our members,” Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said Thursday. “We have made changes to the Oscars over the years — including this year — and we will continue to evolve while also respecting the incredible legacy of the last 90 years.” 
 
 Last month, the Academy’s board of governors voted to create the new award, which it said would recognize “outstanding achievement in popular film.” But it did not lay out the criteria or voting process that would be used to determine which films would be eligible and how they would be selected. With awards season currently taking shape as dozens of Oscar hopefuls are introduced at festivals in Venice, Telluride and Toronto, which kicks off its fest Thursday, numerous questions were raised about the proposed award. With studios and distributors drawing up plans for the coming awards season, the Academy was under pressure to set up rules regarding the new category. 
 
 While the Academy appeared to still be committed to the new award, even though it said it requires further study, the question will now become whether or not it quietly drops the idea altogether. 
 
 Hoping to stem falling ratings for the Oscar broadcast, the Academy is looking for ways to attract the attention of mainstream moviegoers. The new award was seen as a way to guarantee that blockbuster movies, like the Marvel, Star Wars and DC Universe films, as well as surprise hits like A Quiet Place and Crazy Rich Asians, would be assured of air time on the broadcast. 
 
 But the announcement of the new award was met with an immediate wave of criticism. "The film business passed away today with the announcement of the 'popular' film Oscar," Rob Lowe tweeted. "It had been in poor health for a number of years. It is survived by sequels, tent-poles, and vertical integration." Critics of the idea variously complained that creating a new Oscar was akin to asking popular films to sit at the kids' table, while others argued it would devalue the eventual winner of the best picture Oscar. 
 
 This season, Black Panther was emerging as a possible test case for the new pop Oscar. Undeniably popular — the pic has grossed $1.3 billion worldwide — it has also been critically applauded, earning a 97 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Early handicapping has put it in the running for a best picture nomination, and while the Academy said a film could be eligible in both the best picture and best popular movie categories, some warned that a movie like Black Panther's best picture prospects could be impacted negatively if Academy members were suddenly offered the option of voting for it as best popular film. The pic's star Chadwick Boseman told THR, "There's no campaign [that we are mounting] for popular film; like, if there's a campaign, it's for best picture and that's all there is to it." 
 
 Even those who supported the idea of the new Oscar — including those inside the Academy — were hard-pressed to describe the rules and voting process that should be used to decide the winner of the category. 
 
 In announcing that it was setting the award aside for the moment, the Academy said that it would continue with other changes intended to keep the upcoming Oscar show from running over three hours. As previously announced, it said that not all of the 24 Oscar categories will be presented live — instead, six to eight categories will be presented at the Dolby Theatre during commercial breaks and then edited versions of the presentations will air later in the broadcast. It is expected that the crafts categories as well as the three short-film categories will be relegated to the non-live presentations, but the Academy said Thursday that the affected categories would rotate from year to year, presumably so that none of the crafts branches feel they are being permanently moved to the commercial-break status. 
 
 Also as previously announced, the 2020 Oscars are moving to an earlier date on the calendar. Instead of taking place toward the end of February, as has been the recent tradition, the 92nd Oscars will be held on Feb. 9, 2020. 
 
 To meet that earlier date, the Academy announced key dates for the 2019-2020 awards season. Its Governors Awards will be held Nov. 16, 2019. Nominations voting will open Jan. 2, 2020, and close Jan. 7, with the nominations to be announced Jan. 13. The Academy's annual nominees luncheon will be held Jan. 27, 2020. Final voting will begin Jan. 30 and conclude Feb. 4, 2020. 
 
 Because of the new compressed schedule, beginning in 2020, the Academy will move its Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony to June. The Sci-Tech Awards, at which the Academy honors technological achievements, have traditionally been held two weeks ahead of the Academy Awards. But the Academy said that since the technologies involved do not represent achievements within a specific awards year, it is able to hold that ceremony later in the year. ||||| Days after the 90th Academy Awards telecast aired in March to record-low viewership, Disney-ABC Television Group executives met with leaders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to convey a message: 
 
 You are facing irrelevance. 
 
 Just a year and a half earlier, Disney-ABC had set a long-term pact with the Academy to broadcast the Oscars through 2028 — long past the point where anyone can predict what linear-television consumption will look like. Then the ratings fell off a cliff. The 26.6 million viewers averaged by the 2018 Oscars, according to Nielsen live-plus-same day numbers, represented a 19% decline from 2017, and 39% drop from the show’s recent peak in 2014. Numbers for younger viewers were even worse. Ratings in the 18-49 demo fell 24% from 2017 and 47% from 2014. The 18-34 demo was down 29% from 2017 and 56% from 2014. 
 
 Other awards shows, such as the Primetime Emmys and Grammys, have also faced recent ratings declines, but none nearly so steep. 
 
 Disney-ABC executives had for years pressed the Academy to impose changes that would shorten the Oscar telecast and incorporate more widely recognized films. (The 2018 Oscars clocked in at an unwieldy 3 hours, 53 minutes; the nine best-picture nominees this year averaged $78.7 million at the U.S. box office.) But at the come-to-Jesus meeting after March’s show, the TV people walked through the lousy ratings at a granular level, identifying precise moments during the show that prompted viewers to stop watching. They made several recommendations about the ways that the telecast’s length could be reined in, and proposed a “best blockbuster” category that would reward films that had been seen by larger audiences. They also argued that viewers had become fatigued by the ever-increasing number of televised awards shows — including the Golden Globe Awards, whose viewership has been relatively stable in recent years — and that the Oscars should be moved to an early calendar period. 
 
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 Academy officials acknowledged that the ratings situation was dire. At a meeting several weeks ago, AMPAS board members discussed the changes proposed and pushed for by ABC. On Tuesday night, the board voted to move the Oscars up to Feb. 9, 2020; to cap the telecast length at three hours by moving several awards categories into commercial breaks; and to create a “popular film” category, the criteria for which has not yet been divulged. 
 
 ABC has not commented on the changes. But sources at the network expressed relief Wednesday that the Academy had finally taken action. The Oscars telecast is the biggest piece of event programming for the Alphabet — the only one of the Big Four broadcasters without an NFL package, and thus lacking the boost that its competitors get from television’s most powerful driver of live viewing. Network insiders were also unmoved Wednesday by evident social-media backlash to the announcement, particularly to the addition of the popular film category, noting that changes to longstanding institutions such as the Oscars often yield complaints, and predicting that audiences would ultimately embrace the new format. 
 
 The Oscar changes came just two days after the Big Four and the Television Academy announced a new deal for telecast rights to the annual Primetime Emmy Awards. The networks and the TV Academy had wrangled over similar issues, with broadcasters pushing to move several Emmy categories out of the telecast. Both sides agreed to effectively punt on proposed telecast changes, however, and revisit them in 2019. 
 
 With a new format locked in, the Academy is expected to next turn to naming producers and a host for the 2019 Oscars. Sources told Variety on Wednesday that no conversations have taken place with Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd, who produced the last two telecasts, or with Jimmy Kimmel, who hosted the last two years. 
 
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– And the winner is … not the new Oscars category. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced a slew of changes last month to its annual awards show, among them a new "outstanding achievement in popular film" category meant to reward films perhaps not critically acclaimed but still able to draw big crowds. Not many details on voting or eligibility came with the announcement, but it was enough to cause an outcry, and that outcry has made an impact. Per the Hollywood Reporter, the academy said Thursday the new category will be postponed and won't debut at the 91st awards show on Feb. 24 so it can "examine and seek additional input." The group said in a statement that "the Academy recognized that implementing any new award nine months into the year creates challenges for films that have already been released," the BBC reports. But it wasn't just the timing that rankled some. The announcement met resistance from detractors who said hit movies that are also critically acclaimed—chief among them Black Panther—could lose steam for a best picture award if they were also thrown into the "popular" film category. Advocates for the move say it would spur more of the general public to watch the awards show, which has seen a nearly 40% viewership decline over the past four years. The New York Times' sources say that at a Tuesday night meeting of the academy's 54-member board, Laura Dern was steadfast in her opposition to the new category; Steven Spielberg, who is described as a board member with "enormous influence," was reportedly "uncomfortable with plans to introduce [it] at the coming Oscars."