Movies will be permitted to advertise for the first time ever during the next Oscarcast.

"Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences board of governors voted Tuesday night to ease its long-standing ban on movie advertisements running in the Oscar telecast," reports Variety. "The board voted to allow a limited number of spots for movies that have not yet opened — meaning that none of the nommed pics can be tubthumped during the telecast."

Each distributor will be permitted to feature one spot as long as it hasn't run anywhere else yet.

Two years ago cost of 30-second ads on the Oscarcast reached an all-time high of $1.7 million, bringing in approximately $80 million total. However, there are conflicting reports of what the price was last year. The New York Times reported $1.6 million for a 30-second ad. USA Today said $1.8 million.

Meantime, those ads are reaching a decreasing number of eyeballs. Last year the Oscarcast had its lowest TV ratings ever just three weeks after the Super Bowl had its highest viewership on record. About 32 million Oscar fans tuned in last February, surpassing the previous low of 33 million in 2003 (for 2002 films) that coincided with the start of the war in Iraq. Highest viewership of an Oscarcast was in 1998 (for 1997 films) when 55.3 million people watched "Titanic" tie "Ben-Hur's" record for most Oscars win in a night (11).

(L.A. Times photo)