Online streaming site iQiyi confirmed with the Global Times on Sunday night that the platform will not broadcast the 88th Academy Awards early on Monday, following viral online posts that claimed the live Web broadcast for this year's Oscars had been cancelled.
A Sina Weibo user who claimed to be a former employee of popular film review site mtime.com said that the live Web broadcast for the 88th Academy Awards had been cancelled. Previous reports said that iQiyi would air a live bilingual broadcast of the Oscars in the Chinese mainland.
In 2014, the Oscars were carried by several streaming video services in China, including Sohu, Sina and iQiyi.
Speculation on Sina Weibo attributed the cancellation of the broadcast to the nomination of two films, Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom and Racing Extinction. Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom is one of this year's nominees for Best Documentary Feature. The film depicts the Ukrainian revolution from the perspectives of diverse groups of people, according to the Website of the awards' presenter, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The song "Manta Ray" from Racing Extinction, a film directed by Louie Psihoyos, was nominated for Best Original Song. Psihoyos is well known in China for his film The Cove, which depicted the hunting of rare species in China and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2010.