Disappointingly, this year’s Academy Awards will not include live performances of the songs nominated in the Best Song category.

Deadline reports:

It was bad enough that just about every eligible tune in the Best Original Song category was omitted from this year’s Academy Awards nominations. Or that, due to their complicated voting system, the music branch of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences saw fit to nominate only two songs: Rio’s “Real In Rio” and The Muppets’ ”Man or Muppet” when well-known artists like Elton John, Mary J. Blige, and Sinead O’Connor also had terrific songs in the mix. But now Deadline has learned that neither nominated song will be performed during the Oscar telecast as things stand now. We understand that both studios — Rio‘s Fox and The Muppets‘ Disney — formally protested the decision to skip but received turn-downs. ”It seems like a huge missed opportunity to me, and we certainly tried,” one song insider just told us. Said another song insider: “It doesn’t make sense. They could have so much fun with Muppets and Rio staging.”

We would have loved to have seen the Muppets performing at the Oscars! Ah well.