WATCH LIVE: Oscars 2016

By RENEE SCHIAVONE (Patch Staff)

HOLLYWOOD, CA- The stars will shine brightly at the 88th Academy Awards — better known as The Oscars — Sunday night, live from Los Angeles.

If you want to catch all the awards action and those lovely acceptance speeches live on television, tune in at 5:30 p.m. local time (That’s 8:30 p.m. if you’re watching from the East Coast). The network carrying the program is ABC.

ABC is also live streaming the entire broadcast— including backstage coverage— online.

But if you want to spend the afternoon indulging Hollywood culture, watching the arrivals on the red carpet and dreaming of wearing the A-listers fashions, ABC7 will begin their pre-event coverage at 1 p.m. “The Road to Gold: A Year at the Movies” will air from 1 p.m. until 2 p.m., followed immediately by “On the Red Carpet at the Oscars” and ”Oscars Opening Ceremony: Live from the Red Carpet.”

Chris Rock will take his second turn hosting the event. He also led the ceremony in 2005. Amid the raging debate over the lack of diversity at the Oscars, Rock has taken the unusual step of avoiding almost all interviews leading up to the show. However, he has been tweeting about it in recent days.

Rock has been making unannounced appearances at the Comedy Store in West Hollywood in recent weeks to prepare for the show, and he’s hinted that the diversity debate prompted him to completely re-work his opening monologue.

The Oscars will be televised in more than 225 countries.

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— City News Service contributed to this report. Image courtesy of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences.