THE American Oscars are still the main course. But the British Film Academy Awards are making progress. Once the pudding, they're now the starter.

Occasionally, the British Oscars ceremony has achieved publicity for the wrong reasons. Remember when guests arrived during a downpour and were forced to walk - well, wade - along a foaming red carpet?

Nowadays the Baftas are taken more seriously. No longer an afterthought in the wake of the American Academy Awards, but a taste of things to come when the Oscars are handed out in Hollywood on February 29.

Tomorrow, BBC1 viewers will be able to watch the good, the bad and glamorous applauding the winners at the Odeon cinema in London's Leicester Square. Given British voters' often quirky choices, don't be surprised if Newcastle-born Anne Reid sees off the American challenge of Uma Thurman and double nominee Scarlett Johansson to take home the best actress award.

Teenage Teesside actor Jamie Bell was a shock best actor winner for Billy Elliot the other year, so there's no reason why Reid can't provide a repeat surprise for her career-high performance as the grandmother having an affair with a younger man in The Mother.

"I think we'll always be slightly quirky. I hope that continues," says Sunderland-born producer David Parfitt, Bafta Film vice-chairman and an Oscar-winner for Shakespeare In Love.

He and Love Actually producer Duncan Kenworthy, who is Bafta Film chairman, think the campaign to raise the Baftas' status in the awards world is working well.

The first thing they did was move the British ceremony to a date before, instead of after, the Oscars. This year, with the Americans deciding to hold their event a month earlier in a bid to combat flagging ratings, Bafta had to move forward again too.

"People see the Baftas as a stepping stone to the Oscars now, and it's helped our profile," says Kenworthy, whose Love Actually is up for best British film.

"The reason for the date change was very mundane. It seemed to me that Bafta members were voting in the knowledge of who'd won the Oscars, and it was somehow affecting the vote.

"We really wanted members to have a clean sheet of paper in front of them. Now they vote early on in the awards season. The side effect is that we're seen by Hollywood as an indicator of the Oscars. If it means studios take us more seriously and will pay for stars to come over and attend our ceremony, that's fine."

The move is paying off. Last year, 90 per cent of the nominees were in the audience at the Baftas. There's nothing more embarrassing - and annoying for the TV audience - than a string of "I'm sorry but so-and-so can't be here" announcements.

Parfitt recalls that he and Kenworthy made a trip over to Hollywood to gauge reaction to Bafta's date change. There was a worry that studios would want nominees to stay in Los Angeles campaigning for the Oscars rather than attend the London awards. That hasn't proved the case. Last year the editor of City Of God travelled all the way from Brazil to attend - and won.

What Bafta has faced is criticism that it's too interested in Hollywood at the expense of British movies and should be doing more to promote home-grown talent. Kenworthy says the British film industry will always be central to Bafta but wants the evening to be the biggest celebration in the British film year.

"We want to throw the spotlight on British film. The more Americans come and walk down the red carpet, then we think that's the best showcase for British cinema," he says. "It's been an international event since being created, taking in all the films released in Britain the previous year. That's 400 plus, a universe of films that members are choosing from.

"We resist any pressure to be British only because we think it honours nominees more to be nominated with the best in the world. There are other awards ceremonies for only British films."

This year's list is led by Cold Mountain with 13 nominations and The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King with 12. They're followed by Girl With A Pearl Earring (ten nominations), Lost In Translation (eight), Master And Commander (eight) and Big Fish (seven).

One notable absentee is box-office hit Calendar Girls, although the story of the Yorkshire WI members who stripped off for a charity calendar is on the shortlist for Orange Film of the Year.

TV coverage is a key element in raising the profile of the awards. The bigger and more star-studded the event becomes, the more value it is to broadcasters, says Parfitt.

The presentation ceremony is shown in the US on cable television, live in some areas and delayed transmission in others. No one expects ratings to rival the worldwide audience of millions that the American ceremony attracts.

"It's asking a lot in the home country of the Oscars for the Baftas to be a huge TV event," admits Kenworthy.

l The Baftas are being shown on BBC1 tomorrow at 9pm.