BREAKING NEWS!... EXCLUSIVE... UPDATED I've just learned that, at tonight's Board of Governors meeting of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, members discussed moving up the 2011 Oscars to sometime in January. You read that right -- JANUARY! This would be a shocking change, not just because the ABC telecast of the 83rd Academy Awards would conflict with (or is it more like outfox?) NBC's competing Golden Globes broadcast. And bump up against the Super Bowl. But it would leap in front of the SAG awards January 30th and the BAFTA awards February 13th and also steal their thunder. It also would condense the awards campaigning for the already chaotic (and I think idiotic) Top 10 Best Picture nominations period, as well as dramatically alter the way studios are timing the release of their movies.

But the moguls see potential plusses. "The awards season is too long currently. This will shorten and reduce the amount of campaigning," one studio head told me tonight. "Also, it will make the Oscars the definitive awards show again. The Globes can't move a lot earlier as all the movies wouldn't be released yet. "The only potential downside is how do people see all the films in time to vote for nominations?"

http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/