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The Oscars will be presented a little later next year.

The 82nd Annual Academy Awards will air live on ABC from the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles on March 7 to avoid coinciding with the Winter Olympics, said Leslie Unger, a spokeswoman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The 2010 Winter Games are scheduled Feb. 12-28.

This year's Oscars telecast, hosted by Hugh Jackman, aired Feb. 22.

For many years, until 2004, the awards ceremony was held at the end of March.

"It has been in February since then, except for one year, in 2006, where the circumstances were the same as next year, to not coincide with the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics," Unger said Wednesday.

Nominations ballots will be mailed to members Dec. 28 and nominations polls will close Jan. 23.

An estimated 36.3 million people watched this year's Academy Awards, an increase of more than 4 million from last year's least-watched Oscars ceremony ever.

While ABC was heartened by the larger audience, especially among younger viewers, there are still only two Oscar telecasts on record with fewer viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Last year, when "No Country For Old Men" won best picture, the telecast was seen by 32 million people. The 2003 telecast, with "Chicago" as the best picture winner, was seen by 33 million people.

Hugh Jackman was the host of Sunday's show, where "Slumdog Millionaire" was the big winner. Among the earlier awards on the telecast was the late Heath Ledger's best supporting actor prize for "The Dark Knight."

At a time that the TV audience is fragmenting, Sunday's audience was the biggest for any prime-time entertainment program in two years, ABC said. The Golden Globes was seen last month by just under 15 million people.
The largest Oscars audience on record was in 1998, when 55.2 million watched "Titanic" win best picture.

Before he accepted Barack Obama's offer to join his presidential ticket, Joe Biden got a promise from Obama: that he would be there for "every critical decision," Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Speaking to ABC's "This Week," Biden said he believes the vice president's role is to provide "the best, sagest, most accurate, most insightful advice and recommendations he or she can make to a president to help them make some of the very, very important decisions that have to be made."

When Obama talked to him about the vice-presidential slot, Biden recalled, "I said, 'I don't want to be picked unless you're picking me for my judgment. I don't want to be the guy that goes out and has a specific assignment. ... I want a commitment from you that in every important decision you'll make, every critical decision, economic and political, as well as foreign policy, I'll get to be in the room.'"

Biden said President-elect Obama has kept the promise, having Biden in the room for all of his decisions about who will fill key posts in the administration.

Biden will have a specific assignment as the new administration gets under way, however. Come Inauguration Day, he will be the working families czar, so to speak.

On Sunday, Obama's transition team announced the new "White House Task Force on Working Families" -- a major initiative targeted at "raising the living standards of middle-class, working families in America."

The initiative will be chaired by Biden.

Other members of the task force will include the secretaries of labor, health and human services, and commerce, as well as the directors of the National Economic Council, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Domestic Policy Counsel, and the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.

In an interview with ABC's "This Week," Biden said it's a "discrete job that's going to last only for a certain period of time."

"The one thing that we use as a yardstick of economic success of our administration: Is the middle class growing? Is the middle class getting better? Is the middle class no longer being left behind? And we'll look at everything from college affordability to after-school programs, the things that affect people's daily lives. I will be the guy honchoing that policy," he said.

Biden said he will have the authority to get a consensus among the task force -- but will use his relationship with the president if a consensus isn't reached.

"If in fact there is no consensus, [I'd] go to the president of the United States and say, 'Mr. President, I think we should be doing this, cabinet member so-and-so thinks that. You're going to have to resolve what it is we think we should do.' "

Obama has set up several key goals for the task force, including expanding education and training; improving work and family balance; a focus on labor standards, including workplace safety; and protecting working-family incomes and retirement security.

So what power will the new task force have in shaping policy?

According to the transition team, Biden and other members "will expedite administrative reforms, propose Executive orders, and develop legislative and public policy proposals that can be of special importance to working families."

"My administration will be absolutely committed to the future of America's middle-class and working families. They will be front and center every day in our work in the White House," said Obama in a statement. "And this Task Force will be one vehicle we will use to ensure that we never forget that commitment."

And in line with the Obama team's pledge of full transparency, the task force will issue annual reports, available online to the public.

Anna Burger, chairwoman of Change To Win -- a group made up of seven unions -- hailed the announcement.

"[It] shows that President-elect Obama is committed to middle class families and change truly is coming to Washington. Working people finally have an administration that is willing and eager to take action to address their needs," she said in a statement. "The White House Task Force on Working Families is a vital first step toward restoring our economy and making government work for working people again."

In what ABC billed as Biden's first interview as vice president-elect, Biden also discussed the role he played in helping Sen. Hillary Clinton decide to accept Obama's offer to serve as his secretary of state.

"She's one of my close friends. And when this came forward, I did talk to her. She sought me out. I sought her out as well, to assure her that this was real," he said, adding that "there was a lot swirling around" at the time.

Biden said he does not know whether he played a "key" role in helping Clinton make her decision. "It wasn't so much convincing, but I -- they wanted to know my perspective, and I gave my perspective."

Biden also said that the nation's economy "is in much worse shape than we thought it was in," and the immediate goal is to pass another stimulus package to prevent it from "absolutely tanking."

"There is going to be real significant investment," Biden said. "Whether it's $600 billion or more, or $700 billion, the clear notion is, it's a number no one thought about a year ago.

"... The single most important thing we have to do as a new administration -- to be able to have impact on all of the other things we want to do, from foreign policy to domestic policy -- is we've got to begin to stem this bleeding here and begin to stop the loss of jobs in the creation of jobs," said Biden, who also said he had spoken with members of Congress from both parties about a new stimulus.

Obama, meanwhile, has decided to increase his goal for creating new jobs after receiving economic forecasts that suggest the economy is in worse shape than had been predicted, two Democratic officials told CNN Saturday. Watch what Obama has to say about the economy »

The officials said Obama is increasing his goal from 2.5 million to 3 million jobs over the next two years after receiving projections early this week that suggest the recession will be deeper than expected.

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- It's mayhem on the set of ABC's "Desperate Housewives."

Most of the cast is attempting to flee a crowded nightclub that's slowly catching fire. Thick layers of smoke are quickly filling the room. Flickering flames are streaking up the walls. Pushy extras are hurrying to the nearest exit. And someone is still in the bathroom!

Much like the tornado that ravaged Wisteria Lane last season or the supermarket standoff the year before, the nightclub fire is the buzzed-about sweeps stunt that will engulf Sunday's episode. The blaze appears to have been started by this season's mysterious -- and perhaps villainous -- new neighbor Dave Williams, played by Neal McDonough.

"I personally don't think my character is a bad guy," McDonough said during a break from filming. "He's just damaged goods. Something happened to him that he just can't come back from. He has to take care of something. It's eating his life away. It's really interesting to explore a character like this, and it makes me feel very fortunate for my life."

Away from their usual Universal Studios street set, the cast have gathered for the scorcher inside Sound Stage 28. Meanwhile, on another part of the back lot, a nightclub facade is being erected that will later be burnt to a crisp. In true sweeps fashion, someone won't survive.

During production of the episode in October, the actor portraying one of those in peril found himself in danger in real life.

Gale Harold, who plays the boyfriend of Teri Hatcher's character, was in a motorcycle accident and fractured his shoulder. Script rewrites were ordered after Harold was admitted to USC Medical Center.

This fire isn't the first to threaten Wisteria Lane's residents. In the series' first episode, Susan Mayer (Hatcher) accidentally burned down the home of Edie Britt (Nicollette Sheridan), who retaliated in the second season by lighting up Mayer's place. In the fourth season, the naughty twin sons of Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman) confessed to an arson.

Is series creator Marc Cherry a closeted pyromaniac?

"Not at all," he says over lunch with Huffman a few days later. "I just like putting people in jeopardy."

He certainly does. Without much explanation, "Desperate Housewives" was thrust five years into the future at the end of last season. Inspired by "Lost," Cherry recalls nonchalantly pitching the leap to ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson during a baseball game last October. He said McPherson's initial response was: "Oh, that could be interesting."

Cherry let the idea percolate with ABC executives because he knew it was a "pretty risky proposition." After the fifth season premiered in September -- apart from a few flashback scenes -- there's been no going backward. What could have been a jump-the-shark moment ultimately reinvigorated everyone.

"I think it got everybody -- the fans included -- excited again," said Huffman, whose character battled cancer during the fourth season. "It certainly got the writers excited again. It all started on the page. The housewives all look younger though, which is a little weird, but the men look at a little older, which is really how it really should go."

The jump gave Dana Delany's tormented Katherine Mayfair, the center of last season's mystery, a place alongside the housewives at their weekly poker games. However, beyond her pairing with plumber Mike Delfino (James Denton) laid out in last week's episode, Mayfair has mostly served as the caterer sidekick to domestic queen Bree Hodge (Marcia Cross).

"I've gotten to do a lot more comedy," Delany said on her way to Sound Stage 28. "I guess I am hoping they will change it up a bit. I'm just honored they asked me to come back in the first place. The show has never asked anybody to come back for the next season, so I think they're trying to figure out how you fit in a sixth housewife."

Older counterparts for the children of Wisteria Lane were cast while the teenagers morphed into adults. Andrea Bowen, the 18-year-old actress who has played Susan's levelheaded daughter Julie since the beginning of the show, will return to Sunday's episode as a graduate student who's dating an older professor (Steven Weber).

"This whole five-year change has really shifted the vibe on the set," she said in her trailer. "It's spiced things up. There's the ability to do a lot more with these characters. For me, to come back in the middle of this has been interesting. I'm trying to get everybody to catch me up. I've been watching episodes like a regular viewer."

Cherry, who once worked as a writer and producer on the long-running sitcom "The Golden Girls," said he doesn't think "Desperate Housewives" will be doing any more fast-forwarding, but he does see an end to the series in sight. He's beginning to conjure up ideas for the sixth season and hopes the seventh season will be the last.

"I know what the last scene of the show is," teased Cherry. "I already have that in my head. I would like to end the series after seven seasons. The problem is we are one of the top-rated scripted series on ABC."

Cherry revealed that the final scene would feature just one of the housewives. Gasp! On a series where car wrecks, back-stabbing, murder, fire and other natural disasters are regular occurrences, it probably shouldn't be too surprising that, in the end, the show's mastermind may leave just one woman standing.