text: On March 30, 1981, the 53rd Academy Awards was postponed for one day, after the shooting of President Ronald Reagan and others in Washington, D.C.In 1993, an In Memoriam segment was introduced, honoring those who had made a significant contribution to cinema who had died in the preceding 12 months, a selection compiled by a small committee of Academy members.This segment has drawn criticism over the years for the omission of some names.Criticism was also levied for many years regarding another aspect, with the segment having a "popularity contest" feel as the audience varied their applause to those who had died by the subject's cultural impact; the applause has since been muted during the telecast, and the audience is discouraged from clapping during the segment and giving silent reflection instead.This segment was later followed by a commercial break.In terms of broadcast length, the ceremony generally averages three and a half hours.The first Oscars, in 1929, lasted 15 minutes.At the other end of the spectrum, the 2002 ceremony lasted four hours and twenty-three minutes.In 2010, the organizers of the Academy Awards announced winners' acceptance speeches must not run past 45 seconds.This, according to organizer Bill Mechanic, was to ensure the elimination of what he termed "the single most hated thing on the show" – overly long and embarrassing displays of emotion.In 2016, in a further effort to streamline speeches, winners' dedications were displayed on an on-screen ticker.During the 2018 ceremony, host Jimmy Kimmel acknowledged how long the ceremony had become, by announcing that he would give a brand-new jet ski to whoever gave the shortest speech of the night (a reward won by Mark Bridges when accepting his Best Costume Design award for Phantom Thread.