From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Schneider of TV Guide magazine, filling in for Kim Masters, and this is The Business.

It was very humbling that in my mid-40s, I was going to go back out on the road and have to really dance for a living.

Comed comedian Adam Carolla has weathered career highs and lows, but he's been determined

to always keep working. Now he's directed a movie in which he's also the star.

Roadhard is an autobiographical comedy about a comedian's dark days on the road. He tells us how

he got the money to make it and why he was adamant about working outside the Hollywood studio system. But first, on the news banter, Amy Pascal finds a potent problem moving offices,

and could the return of an old NBC exec be good news for Brian Williams? Stay tuned. It's the

business from KCRW.

I'm joined by my partner in banter, Matt Bellany of the Hollywood Reporter.

Hello, Matt.

Hi there.

So, Matt, Oscar season may be over, but the impact of last month's disappointing ratings for this year's telecast are still being felt.

As you may recall,

the ratings were down about 18% from 2014, about 36.6 million viewers, which is fine, but definitely a disappointment for the Motion Picture Academy. And now there's been a report that you guys

wrote at The Hollywood Reporter that the Academy Board of Governors is thinking about bringing back

the number of nominees for

Best Picture back down to five. Yeah, I mean, six years ago, the Academy, in response to mostly

the fact that the Dark Knight did not get a Best Picture nomination, expanded the field to first

10 nominees and then as many as 10 nominees for Best Picture. And the thinking behind that move was

we're going to expand the field and more of these bigger blockbuster style movies that more

of the public has seen will become Best Picture nominees and it'll get the public more interested

in the Oscars. And unfortunately for the Academy since then, the numbers show that

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