Even with the addition of Chris Rock as the host, this year's Academy Awards live broadcast on ABC is likely to continue the recent trend of progressively lower ratings. So in this era of cutting the cord and increased competition for viewers, why can't you stream the Academy Awards live?

The short answer is that broadcast network owners and executives are greedy idiots. But the longer answer is....well, they're greedy idiots.

It turns out that you can stream the Oscars live if you happen to live in one of a small number of cities where it's allowed. And even then, you have to be a subscriber to cable or satellite TV so you can "authenticate" yourself using your TV subscriber login information. This weirdness is just the latest wrinkle in the industry's wrangling over retransmission rights, the ability to stream live signals and the overall trend in squeezing every possible dollar out of their hapless viewers. 

When your cable or satellite television company wants to include local TV stations in their offerings, they are required to negotiate with the local station for what is known as "retransmission rights." For the first couple of decades, that approval was generally wrapped in as part of a much larger negotiation. So, for instance, ABC would grant Comcast the rights to stream their owned-and-operate ABC affiliates if Comcast would agree to carry a new channel such as ESPN 12 or SoapNet. But in the past 4-5 years, those negotiations have moved to an all-cash deal. The broadcast networks see retransmission rights as a great place to squeeze a bit more money out of everyone by insisting to be paid for retransmission rights. Those payments have grown from almost nothing to several billion dollars and those no end in sight to the increases. As a thank you for paying those fees, networks and their affiliates have been negotiating streaming rights for local TV station signals. In the case of CBS, these stations are generally being rolled into the CBS All Access App, which costs about $6 a month.

In the case of ABC, the network has been slowly cutting deals to allow customers to stream live signals at ABC.com, through the Watch ABC app and a few other places such as Sling TV (if you subscribe to the "Live & More" tier). But the deals are only in place for a few affiliates and they require having authenticated TV subscriber credentials. 

So if you live in the Chicago, Fresno, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Raleigh-Durham, and San Francisco markets, you can stream the Oscars live tonight with authenticated credentials. Otherwise, you're stuck with video replays of the highlights overnight.  

Disney has ordered a second season of it animated short-form series "Descendant" Wicked World."

The first season of the series followed the progeny of Disney’s best-known villains as they try to fit in at exclusive high school Auradon Prep. It has reached more than 30 million total viewers in the U.S. and generated 100 million engagements on Disney Channel’s app, VOD and YouTube platforms since launching in September 2015.

The final short of season one premieres on July 15. There will also be a half-hour Disney Channel special that will include six back-to-back episodes of the shorts, along with some teases for the upcoming movie "Descendants 2," which goes into production later this summer.

Season Two of "Descendants: Wicked World" will premiere this fall on the Disney Channel. It will feature three new songs as well as several new characters. It is executive-produced by Carin Davis (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic) and Eric Fogel (Celebrity Deathmatch), who also serves as director.

In 2015, an "old-school" stand-up comedian is someone who was working comedy clubs during the boom years of the 1980s. But before that time, being a stand-up usually meant working nightclubs, opening for singers and hopefully stringing together a bunch of TV appearances.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Tom Dreesen was a perfect example of that comedic style. He began comedy as part of a comedy duo, performing with Tim Reid (WKRP) as Tim & Tom. They were the first biracial comedy duo and as you might expect in that time period, the fact that they were very funny wasn't enough to make them a success. They broke up in the mid-1970s and while Reid focused on acting, Dreesen honed his craft as a solo act. He made dozens of appearances on THE TONIGHT SHOW, toured as Frank Sinatra's opening act for 14 years and was a regular in Las Vegas. He was the one of the last comics standing in a part of the business that was already disappearing by the 1980s.

Dreesen continues to perform, most recently performing in a one-man show entitled “An Evening of Laughter & Stories of Sinatra." He's a comic who has endless stories to tell and apparently he's started putting them on video.

In the clip below, he discusses hecklers and remembers a couple of his more unusual encounters. It's a great conversation and if you're interested in stand-up comedy, Dreesen is an articulate and funny example of the best of that era. Hopefully, he'll do more of these videos.