AceShowbiz -

Oscars keep making several changes in the rules. On Friday, June 26, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that it will increase its nomination standards for the original song category. There is minimum average score of 8.25 that should be achieved for a song to be included in the nomination.

The new rule makes it possible there will be only two nominees for the category. If there is one song achieving the required minimum score, that song and the next highest-scored song will be nominees. Still, the five-nominee cap applies if there are many songs getting pass the minimum score. If no song achieves the minimum score, however, no award will be given in that category.

Head of the Academy's music branch, composer Bruce Broughton, claimed the change made in the original song category is their attempt "to improve the quality." He further explained, "There's been a lot of talk about the songs in films, the lack of memorability compared to songs in the past, the almost forgetability of some of them. ... This is an attempt to really make the songs as good as possible."

In addition to the rule changes in the original song category, the academy is moving its honorary Oscars, such as Thalberg and Humanitarian awards, out of the Academy Awards ceremony itself and presenting them at a separate event.

These two changes came several days after the Academy announced that it will double the number of nominees for Best Picture category, making the Oscars race opens to 10 films instead of the usual 5. The Academy made such decision based on last year's experience, as Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis said, "Last year there were more movies that I thought might have fit in the nominations."

The complete list of Academy Award nominations in all categories will be announced on February 2, 2010. The 82nd Academy Awards event itself is going to be held on Sunday, March 7, 2010 and will be aired live by the ABC Television Network.